(New York) City Limits School Staff’s Contact With Students via Social Media

[alp227]

New York City public school teachers may not contact students through personal pages on Web sites like Facebook and Twitter, but can communicate via pages set up for classroom use, the Education Department said Tuesday after it released its first list of guidelines governing the use of social media by employees.

The guidelines do not ban teachers from using social media and, in fact, recognize that social media can offer tremendous pedagogical benefits. But they do reflect growing concerns about the instantaneous electronic ease with which teachers can interact with students, not just in the city but around the United States.

“If a particular type of behavior is inappropriate in the classroom or a professional workplace, then that behavior is also inappropriate on the professional social media site,” the guidelines state.

The guidelines come as education officials around the country grapple with whether to restrict use of social media and other communications, like cellphones and texting, acknowledging that such access is freighted with the potential for misuse or abuse.

full: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/nyregion/social-media-rules-for-nyc-school-staff-limits-contact-with-students.html

I went to high school during the late 2000s (also the rise of social media), and my high school informally had a similar policy then. However, after my class graduated, THEN we friended our former teachers on facebook. My school had a page on an educational web portal for teachers to post information and class work.

[southernyankeebelle]

1. I think that is a good idea. I remember I had a friend that taught in middle school.

She wouldn't even go shopping in the area where she lived. She didn't want her students seeing her. Crazy I know. When my brother was a high school teacher (he is retired now) he was popular with the students. He would call their parents when their kid was having a problem with math. But he also called parents when the kid was doing well. He taught advanced algebra, trig and stuff like that.

[NYC_SKP]

2. One more self-inflicted wound in the soon to expire public school system.

We have several social media pages for school projects.

We do not have our heads in the sand, we are not afraid of the future, we embrace it.

I pity (but just a little) the districts that cling to the past.

[Prometheus Bound]

3. It says "they can communicate via pages set up for classroom use."

That sounds like what you are doing.

[NYC_SKP]

4. I think I misinterpreted that.

At the time I thought they might be referring to school web pages, hosted by schools or by hosts designed to serve schools (there are a lot of them) and not Facebook Group pages.

If they refer to Facebook Group pages, then that's cool.

It allows the interaction without the overlap of personal information, etc., IF the settings are done correctly.

It's new territory, but interesting.

Social media are the virtual communities of this era, the "neighborhoods" that don't exist as much as they once did as kids come to school from all over town and not just my little corner of the city.

I learned that Jay is a cutter and has a lot of anger issues because he and I are FB friends.

Is that a good or a bad thing?

I'm not entirely sure, but I have encountered districts that are OTT paranoid of trouble and won't let their kids videoconference with mine, for example.

Which is a pointless and backward policy, to me.