After attending the Cybersafe training day on Thursday I have pruned my facebook of all current students. I was reluctant to do that because I felt that I was a responsible user of social networking, but the implications and lack of control over what others post, creates vulnerabilities for teachers. I like to be socially inclusive. If a person I know requests to be my friend, I would need to have a clear reason for saying no. It’s easier to have no current students than to make judgement calls.
Greg Gebhart the facilitator is very knowledgeable and I highly recommend his site IT Vision for educators. I have completed a few IT courses with Greg over the past few years. He is a great resource to teachers having been a teacher and possessing a practical and grounded view of how to work with IT in schools.
I have also pruned my twitter account on the same basis. I’ve rid my feed of all the people I don’t read or aren’t really interested in as well as students. I don’t read my twitter feed that often though to be honest so I’ve created groups. The great thing about having different groups is that if I only check it once a week or so, I don’t miss as many posts in the areas I’ve created because the fewer amount of people makes it easier to catch up. Does that make sense?
I have also discovered a whole branch of my family on facebook this week. I think social networking is great. I love staying in touch with people who live all over the place. Although I generally have no time for reality TV, a family member is on ‘So You Think You Can Dance’ (vote Nick!), so I’ve been keeping up with his progress.
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