If there is one thing that has totally transformed my teaching (besides a few years of experience under my belt now), it is developing and following a Personal Learning Network (PLN) on social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Diigo, LinkedIn, and more. I go to these sites every single day to glean (which means steal) ideas, find new websites, look at online gaming, discover classroom management techniques, watch motivational and inspirational videos, read blogs, and a host of other things that keep me sharp in my profession.
But I use these sites for fun as well.
Back in February, our local school board passed a major overhaul of our ethics policy for teachers, administrators, volunteers, and others who make up our educational team. They developed it in two parts. The first part was a total re-write of our old ethics policy (from one page to four) based almost entirely on the ethics document formulated by PET (Professional Educators of Tennessee). The second part is a procedural explanation of how to file ethics complaints and what happens once it is filed (another four pages).
Other than asking for clarification on a handful of ambiguities (what legal document doesn’t have those?), I have absolutely no problem with the new policy, and I heartily endorse the two committee system for handling complaints. It was a much needed overhaul.
However, there was nothing in the policy that directly talked about the ethics of teachers’ use of online social networking. Perhaps this was not the place to put such a policy, but after reading through the entire policy manual online last weekend, I can’t find anything directly related to teachers’ use of online social networking or social media. Email is addressed, as is the creation of web pages for direct use at school.
Is such a policy needed?
That is the question hanging at the back of my mind. I could list several things that “bother” me about what I see with teachers’ and social networking, but let me just mention one. It is one I was guilty of myself for a brief time. I see teacher friends who Facebook and MySpace that have friended students in their classes. I did this when I first started on Facebook. I saw it as an opportunity to reach kids outside the classroom. I tried to make myself available to them if they needed help with homework, or wanted an easy way for their parents to find me. While I changed my mind after the first year and “unfriended” students still in school (even in high school – I’m a middle school teacher), I suppose it is still left up to one’s own judgment about such things.
While some teachers choose not to friend students because of possible legal situations or because the teacher simply needs a space “without kids,” mine was more of an ethical conundrum. I realized that some of the kids I had friended simply were not old enough to even have a Facebook or MySpace page. According to those sites, you must be 13 to create an account. Many of our 6th graders have accounts, and they are definitely note 13 (although one claimed to be 27 on her page).
I realized I could not support these kids lying about their ages in order to participate in these networks when other social networking sites were available for kids their age.
Which leads me to the question that has been on my mind since last week. Do we need an ethics policy for teachers related to social networking and social media? Is it enough to simply block such sites at school and then pretend like they don’t exist after school? Do school boards have a right to set such a policy for teachers? Or do they have an obligation? Where does free speech come into play?
I don’t have any answers to these questions. I’ve asked my friends on Twitter to let me know if their school district has such a policy (I’ve read about a few online), but so far no one has volunteered one. I wouldn’t know what to put it such a policy myself, but I have this nagging feeling in the back of my brain that a policy, even a flawed one, might be helpful.
There is an #edchat hashtag on Twitter where knowledgeable professionals discuss all manner of education needs, but I haven’t seen a discussion on this topic yet. Perhaps its time.
What do you think? Does your district have such a policy? If you are a teacher, would you welcome such a policy? What about the parents that read this blog? Any and all comments are welcome!