To Facebook, or Not To Facebook

Guess who woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning? And so here is where I take out my frustrations on Facebook and some of its users. Look away while you can...I'm warning you...you may dislike this post.

One of my biggest gripes is that because of Facebook's ever-changing settings I cannot adequately control what shows up on my timeline. Last year I began 'friending' former students and I love that I can keep in touch with them. The problem is that they fill my page with their adolescent-ness. Bless their hearts - I love 'em, but daggone it I DO NOT want to grow tomatoes, collect weapons, or earn jewels in any way shape or form. I'm also not going to click "Like" to see how I'll die or who I'll marry or to find out how to kiss. (When I was a  kid we handled all this business in person or with paper notes that went only to a handful of people.)

Related to the student problem is the fact that when I comment on anyone's status, depending on how they've set their privacy, anyone may be able to see the comment and the original post. This is highly suspect to me. I do not post controversial pictures or status updates, however I sometimes comment on friends who do. I do not like relying on others to protect the privacy of my comments. Because I'm friends with students they may see my comments and thus the original, possibly inappropriate posts. Not good.

I have too many 'friends' on Facebook whose daily business I do not care to know about. I wish Facebook was more like Twitter so that people who wanted to see my posts could see them, but in return I wouldn't be subjected to their posts - unless I chose to be. And yes, I am aware that I can 'hide' people, but that only works from my lappy and I generally check Facebook through my phone.....arrrgghhh....another reason to be irritated....limited features on the mobile version.

I am irritated by people who post updates that are cryptic and clearly meant for a limited audience. Such as, 'Great time last night! I can't believe we got in.' Get a clue - that's a message for a limited audience, not a status update. I get irritated when I read posts about an event that excluded me. I feel irritated in general looking at the silly stuff people post. I do not care what you had for dinner unless it's something special or different. BTW, pot roast at home doesn't qualify unless you never cook and Bobby Flay visited your home to personally cook your dinner. 

I'm not a Grammar Goddess, but the daily barrage of spelling & grammar errors irritates me. 

Or how about the posts that ask you to pray for someone and yet the post doesn't say why or what's up. What if some of these prayer requests could be answered if the person was more specific?? Like, "Pray for my friend she has a rare form of hair cancer"...and then whatdya know I have a best friend who just happens to specialize in hair cancer research?? Instead of praying for your friend I could actually hook her up with a person or resources here on earth that could help her.

So, step one is to go on a Facebook Fast. For the next week starting NOW I will not log into or otherwise check Facebook. From there I'll decide whether to resume my relationship with it or to delete it all together. 

Facebook Locally, Tweet Globally!

It's Sunday evening and like me, teachers everywhere are working on lesson plans and preparing materials for the upcoming week. As I reflected on my first two weeks with 1st graders I realized that I need to tighten up my literacy block - I had too much transition and lag time between activities as well as not enough movement for restless 1st graders.

In the process of reflecting and planning for the upcoming week, I sent out a Tweet asking for opinions on what I felt was slow progress in our Read to Self block. Immediately (like within 2 minutes!!) I received super helpful feedback from @qldteacher in Australia as well as from @MsHoughton in Seattle. Both were encouraging and informative. I tweeted back and forth with @qldteacher for a few minutes and she reassured me that her experiences had been similar with her first graders in Australia.

After sharing information with my Tweeps, it hit me how wondrous it is that when I have a question any time of day about anything I can simply ask and, more often than not, get immediate help and encouragement from a real person. Seriously amazing!!

In response to people who are resistant to the idea of using Facebook and Twitter, I offer this metaphor. Think about your kitchen. You probably have a spatula and a whisk. You could use these items for some of the same tasks - there's a little overlap in their usefulness. However, you wouldn't flip burgers with a whisk and you wouldn't beat eggs with a spatula. Facebook and Twitter can be used in similar ways, just as spatulas and whisks can be used for some of the same jobs.

Personally, I use Facebook for keeping up with people I know in the flesh. These are my close friends and relatives. These are the people whose vacation pictures I'd take a minute to look through and care about seeing how much little so-and-so has grown. I also have a group for former students so that I can continue to reach out to them even after they've left my classroom.

I use Twitter to know what's happening in the world. It's more of a professional learning network as demonstrated in my situation today. I follow a wide array of people on Twitter, although a majority of them are in education.

(Another striking difference is that when you're home sick for a day, Facebook is pretty boring because all those people that I'm friends with are at work like I normally would be. Twitter is still a happening place though! I've got friends in my Twitterverse from all over the country and several from other parts of the globe.)

I urge you to consider using both. What about you? Are you involved in more than one social network? Feel free to share your amazing experiences and uses in the comments!


My philosophy is: Facebook locally, Tweet globally!


PS: A huge "THANK YOU" to @qldteacher & @MsHoughton. If you don't follow them on Twitter, please do so now! :)

Are Your Notes Safe?

It occurred to me that I didn't know how far back on one's Facebook page you could go. I feel like I have mine locked down very well in light of my recent 'friending' of students. But what about those posts from a couple years ago before I allowed students to be my friend on Facebook?

I had one of those "Uh-oh" moments where I began wondering if a student could scroll back through my history and 'see' posts that were prior to "Student Lock-down". Sadly, I haven't answered that question, but I did discover another area of weakness on my Facebook privacy settings. (Side note...I did find an interesting site, archivedbook.com, that allows you to review your posts from forever ago in one handy place. It was reassuring to read through my old timeline and not see any moral faux-pas.)

Notes! When I first began Facebooking I completed several of those chain notes where you fill in answers about yourself or create lists of 'interesting' information. Those were NOT locked down to students!! Thankfully, I'm a sane and decent person so there were no glaring stains on my character to be found in those notes, but there was information I'd prefer not to share with 10 year olds. I did what every person does to find the answer to a question...I Googled it.

To adjust the privacy settings for your notes you have to actually go to the individual notes. You can't adjust your settings for notes from the privacy setting menus that include everything else on Facebook (pictures, posts, birthday, marriage status, etc.). Here are the official Facebook directions in case you need to adjust your settings.

We cannot be too careful as educators. There are plenty of stories out there about 'Teachers Gone Wild' without Facebook exposing details that could be held against us in the eyes of our students or their parents. At this point I still feel that the benefits of 'friending' students on Facebook outweigh the potential consequences (with the exception of joblessness!). But as I've said, I think I've contained students to a chunk of information that I'm comfortable sharing. If you are a teacher and you have not recently looked at your privacy settings, I urge you to do so! 


Information about the picture can be found here.

I Didn't Join That Group....Did I??

Today's thought about befriending students on Facebook concerns groups. Soon after beginning to friend students I arrived home to find an open chat window on my computer. Several students I befriended had chatted with each other and another person who I was not friends with (another student, I presume) while I was away from my computer. I scrolled back through the chat to try and figure out why I had been included as I have not 'chatted' on Facebook for at least a year or two. I typically make myself 'offline' in the chat window.

Here is what I discovered. Once you are a friend of someone they can add you to the groups they create WITHOUT your permission. Students are fantastic at creating groups; this is the cyber equivalent of the clubs we used to create on the playground at school! Once the group is created the members can then have private chats which will pop up on your computer whether you're directly involved in the chat or not. 

The fix? Keep an eye on the left side of your Home screen. You'll see the list of groups to which you belong. If you see an unfamiliar group, click on it to check it out. Once you are on the group's homepage you can choose to 'Leave group' (see the right side of the screen). 

I've had to do this several times as students are quite proficient at creating groups and adding friends. My biggest concern is the scenario I described above with the chat window. Thankfully, the chat that was on my screen was harmless banter among kids. But what if it had been something darker?? As an educator it gives me pause to consider the information to which I am now privvy to just by being 'friends' with students on Facebook.  

Facebook & Befriending Students

I've been on Facebook for several years and I always maintained a strict "NO friending students" policy. However, I've changed my mind over the last couple months. 

My biggest reason for the change of heart is that Facebook is where the students ARE. They seem to be on here 24/7. It doesn't matter that Facebook's policy prohibits minors under the age of 13 from creating accounts. 

However, as an educator I have big concerns about my privacy as well as how involved I want to be with students in cyberspace. 

Facebook's privacy settings are sometimes difficult to navigate and it seems that there are MANY possible pitfalls.

For example, do you allow students to 'see' all of your status updates and posts? I don't. When friending students I assign them to a specific 'List' which I conveniently named 'Students'. They are allowed to see only the posts that I specifically assign to that List. 

How about your photo albums? Did you know that you can adjust privacy settings for every album? I didn't....until I realized that some of my newly friended students were commenting on photos that I hadn't reviewed in years. 

My point is - if you are a teacher and you are choosing to befriend students on Facebook, be smart about it. Check your privacy settings. Don't be afraid to click around and dig deep into the different menus! Set up a list and assign students to it so you can protect your status updates or be doubly-darn sure that you don't post ANYTHING that could be construed as inappropriate (remembering of course that we live in the heart of the Bible Belt and lots of people hold strict beliefs about lots of things!). 

In preparing this post I searched my county's website and Board of Ed site as well as the GA D.O.E. site. I did NOT find any specific mention of Facebook or social media in the ethics policies. I reviewed the online training materials and the only statement I found that could apply to Facebook or other social media is a vague mention about inappropriate communication with students via electronic media. 

Let me know if you find specific rules concerning educators and students on social media! I'm interested in the ramifications of this. I'm most interested in making sure we all stay safe and are able to connect with students in a way that's meaningful to them, but also professionally sound.