Teachers online discusses how teachers balance their personal and professional lives online. The article was published in the December 2011 issue of the PPTA News, the newsletter of the New Zealand Post Primary Teachers' Association / Te Wehengarua (PPTA)
Where do we separate the personal from the professional?
Unlike the gap between the rich and poor in New Zealand, the divide between a teacher's personal and professional life is closing in as social networking sites have meant a head-on collision between the two worlds.
It's this lack of a gap that has left teachers looking closely at how they conduct themselves online in a personal capacity, while balancing how they can engage technologically savvy youth in the classroom.
As the personal and professional have merged debate has widened.
Social media a powerful learning opportunity
Trainee teacher and blogger Stephanie Thompson asks in a post "Is fear extinguishing innovation?" as we witness increased scaremongering around teachers using social media. "Social media in and of itself isn't bad," she said.
"In fact when used effectively it is one of the most powerful forms of learning out there. Yet we spend so much time worrying about all the potential threats that we lose sight of all the awesome learning opportunities out there."
Link to Teaching the teacher blog
Teachers should be encouraged to take the time to understand the technology
PPTA member Gerard MacManus said the fine balance between the personal and professional online involved a clear understanding of the technology involved. He said his school did not have its own policy on online conduct but had distributed PPTA's Web 2.0 guidance for teachers created in 2008.
Web 2.0 is a phrase coined to indicate the second generation of internet tools including wikis, blogs and social networking sites.
MacManus said he'd been a user of Facebook for a while mainly to keep in contact with family and friends, but when it came to creating links with his students he was careful. "Students are put into a separate custom group, where they cannot see photos, wall posts or any other details, apart from what I make public."
He said at the very least teachers should keep students away from what they do on a daily basis via separate accounts and he said he only conversed with students about school work, assessment and did not get involved in their lives.
MacManus said he'd been the victim of cyber bullying. Students created an alternative Facebook page on his behalf, "friending" some of his friends, and said it had been difficult to have the page removed.
Despite his own negative experiences with Facebook, MacManus said it was an important educational tool.
"Looking at Myportfolio and MoodIe, as well as ultranet, social networking seems to be included in all aspects of learning management and eportfolio solutions now. It depends on how much teachers want to get involved. Teachers should not be bullied into it, but see it as a positive to how teaching will change and evolve in the coming years."
Online safety, right to privacy and informed consent are guiding principles for digital environment policy
Gaye Bloomfield, a psychology teacher at Nelson's Nayland College, said the school did not have a formal policy on Facebook as an entity on its own.
"We have developed our policy for our digital environment where online safety and a right to privacy and informed consent are the guiding principles and we have a group called 'Staff using Facebook'," she said.
Bloomfield is a daily user of Facebook and said she'd accepted students as friends.
"If I know them I accept them and add them to a group I have created within my friends list called 'students'. People in this group can see my wall, but not photos, videos or events that I am part of."
She said her experiences with Facebook had been positive but she was aware of fake profiles being set up that are "disparaging and false".
"I have also heard of fake profiles being set up to spread gossip about other students. Blaming Facebook is too simplistic - it is simply the medium that people use to bully; no different to writing on the toilet walls. However, as an organisation, Facebook is hard to get hold of and therefore there is more permanence to the slanderous comments made," she said.
She said social networking sites Facebook and Twitter have been crucial in Christchurch during the aftermath of the quakes.
Netsafe provides online resources for schools
Netsafe, an independent cyber safety body working with the Ministry of Education, have online resources for schools tackling cyber safety.
It presents clear views on the risks of the online environment and how schools should deal with them.
It recommends secondary schools develop ICT use agreements, policy for teachers using social media, and class contracts about appropriate behaviour online and on mobile phones.
Teacher educators are ensuring trainees are 'cybersafe'
Some training providers are dedicating year-long courses to ensure trainees are fully equipped in a fast evolving tech-teaching framework.
Andrea Robertson, a Teacher Education Fellow (ICT) and e-Iearning lecturer at the University Of Otago College Of Education, runs a compulsory e-learning paper for teacher trainees. "We run specific sessions on cybersafety, students bring in examples of what they are seeing on practicum and often they are seeing examples of teachers using social media like Facebook badly."
She said she did not recommend "friending" students on Facebook at all at the teacher training stage, but once employed in a secondary school Robertson suggested checking with the school's social media policy and either opting not to friend students or creating special interest groups; pages or groups with a classroom focus.
"Teachers need to get used to students saying, 'I've been trying to friend you on Facebook, but you haven't accepted,' and having a standard response like, 'As a professional I can't friend you on Facebook'," she said.
Robertson believed this stance coincided with teachers being fully informed about the recommendations on Netsafe's website which included guidelines and policy that could be downloaded and used in schools.
Michele Whitten, programme leader on AUT's Graduate Diploma of Secondary Teaching, said cybersafety was incorporated into all papers offered to teacher trainees.
Whitten said the first paper of the course required trainees to discuss professional conduct and how this was related to their ideas of themselves as teachers.
She said that being temporarily placed in a school offered trainees real insight into social networking sites and the problems they presented.
A real case study presented itself for one of Whitten's students who found comments on their Facebook page that resulted in a school taking offence.
"It was a living lack of privacy settings example. The responses to the status update compromised the student professionally."
At Victoria University's Faculty of Education the bridge between the public and private worlds is crossed even before students enter their studies.
"When students enrol, we interview them, giving them an assessment activity where they look at their professional persona," said Dr Louise
Starkey, associate dean of primaryand secondary in the school of education at Victoria University. "(We ask) is their Facebookpage private? What happens when they google themselves?"
Managing behaviour online a matter of self censure but guidelines are available
PPTA's lCT taskforce is grappling with the breadth of opinion on whether conduct online is a matter of self censure or if strict guidelines are needed.
It has created a list of key points on how teachers can keep themselves safe online such as suggesting not putting anything online you wouldn't be comfortable with a stranger accessing.
Online safety for teachers (2008)
Published in the December 2011 issue of the PPTA News
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360training.com
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Hm... Personally, I do not mix up work problems or issues to my personal life. I always keep it separated and in both ways as possible. That is probably the reason why other online continuing education and certification courses are becoming a trend to other students and they want to avoid possible problems with their teachers in teaching in the future. |
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