Teachers and Social Media

This past week while reviewing articles for the Online Learning Community assignment, I stumbled across an interesting one, titled, Have You Googled Your Teacher Lately? Teachers' Use of Social Networking Sites. It described an instance in a preservice teacher course where one student posted his MySpace page (this article is from 2008) as a website he could teach with in the future. To the professors horror this website displayed graphic images of a bloody hand and an icon of a wrist with a dotted line labeled "cut here". After this incident, the instructor realized a conversation with the whole class about social media should be made.

First of all, this is shocking to me that someone in a teacher preparation program would even think to show this to a professor or classmates. Its unfortunate but sometimes it feels like as teachers we have to be even more cautious as to what we put online, because if parents see something they don't like, then its all downhill from there.

Going through my teacher preparation courses in undergrad, I received this talk. As I was going through Facebook was really popular and Instagram was just starting to gain momentum, so the professor talked about what should not be posted on Facebook or any other social media site, such as photos from parties. He also suggested we put social media account on private, which I immediately did.

Today I am still very cautious as to what I put on Facebook because I have more professional contacts on that site. Instagram, however, I sensor a little less due to the fact I only have friends and people I trust as followers. I'm sure that students (and parents!) still try to look me up to see if my profile is accessible, so I try to make my profile picture appropriate for a teacher as well. I also have changed my Instagram handle so it does not resemble my full name to make it less easier for students to find. My facebook and twitter on the other hand, have my full name due to the fact that I use those often for my own schooling.

Then I began to think about the issue of having students or former students on social media accounts. When I first began to intern I was in a high school classroom and immediately I had my students trying to follow me. My mentor teacher had to step in and address every class and have a conversation with them about how it is not appropriate to follow teachers on social media. I know some teachers absolutely refuse to ever have students on social media, and others say the students have to wait until they graduate. I do not know my stance on the issue yet since I currently teach middle school students and they haven't tried to add me yet.

What is everyone's opinions on social media accounts for teachers? Should we limit ourselves on these sites because of our profession?