Social Networking Websites

A New Age

Over the past year and more, social networking has exploded in popularity and professionals at all levels of public and private institutions discover the power and utility of networking sites such as LinkedIn, Delicious, and the general expressive potential of blogging.  DJUSD teaching staff members have made a number of inquiries regarding the use of MySpace and Facebook for the purpose of interacting with their students when they find that access to those sites is blocked by the district web filter, 8e6.

Technology People

The first impulse of technology-oriented people is to facilitate the use of technology in every way possible, particularly when certain applications enable and enhance communication between people.  Web 2.0 is all about enhanced communication and networking, so anything which stifles that impulse is considered very carefully, with much discussion and concern for process. 

The Bodacious Blog

Blogs and forums are extremely useful tools for teachers, and you are encouraged to investigate them further here.  The purpose of this article, though, is to specifically highlight two providers of a particular form of blogging which is often considered by teachers for interaction with students.  Blogs have morphed over the years into specialized niches that serve very specific audiences.  MySpace and Facebook serve groups of social peers for self-defined kinds of interaction, and both offer networked friends of interest sub-groups, with communication between “friends” being private and privileged, based on user settings that control access to profiles and postings.  It is probably no surprise that the district blocks access to these sites for students, primarily because educators engineer the social interactions of students around certain content-specific experiences leading to measurable knowledge and mastery.  The control necessary for these outcomes are not available in these online environments.  Also according to DJUSD Internet Policy, teachers are required to have access to all email communications and interactions between students generated on the district network, and that level of monitoring is simply not available in the context of these services.  Any teacher access to those services from within the district would necessarily be unidirectional, and unidirectional interaction is not social networking.

Caveat Utilitor

Adults who are new to the world of electronic social networking need to appreciate that peers network within culturally-defined groups.  While those definitions do not necessarily insist on age-grouping, both Facebook and MySpace were created either by or for groups of age-based peers, and individuals from outside those groups need to tread extremely carefully when attempting to establish relationships outside of their own group.  Teachers, in particular, have a unique set of professional concerns and liabilities, in which opportunities for private interactions with their minor students, either on campus or online, need to be very carefully considered.  Electronic communication is always difficult, even between peers, and netiquette is, at the very least, quite culture-specific.  Most people who communicate through email, for example, have had the experience of having something they say in email entirely misunderstood, with unintended emotional content being mistakenly conveyed.  Even if teachers choose to maintain an account in a social networking environment from their home Internet access, they should give very careful consideration to how they interact with minors online.  Professional social networks, such as LinkedIn mentioned above, also exist in the framework of unspoken protocols, but it exists in the context of adult interaction, and it is quite easy to clarify misunderstandings as people extend their network, and rarely would a misstep result in loss of one’s livelihood.  In working with minors, teachers live in something of a glass house, so more care needs to be given in making one’s way in the online interactive environments those minors inhabit.  When we choose to sit down with a group of students at lunch, we do so with a certain apology and understanding that we radically changed the dynamic of what had been happening before we did so, but at least there are witnesses to what we say and do.  Online, there are no witnesses, and no facial expressions (beyond canned emoticons) to reveal our intent.

Right Tool for the Job

Technology policy is a constant tug-of-war between risk and benefit, and as a district we are committed to using the Internet to serve the teaching task.  Where there are powerful interactive and multimedia tools such as blogging, email, forums, and video, to name a few, our work is to provide those tools in service to the district mission and to identify and mitigate any inherent risk.  In cases where the provision of a tool, such as teacher access to YouTube, carries with it a low level of risk while providing a very powerful resource not otherwise available, the potential benefit tips the balance toward access.  If a tool, such as sharing of ideas and posting of notices can be provided without incurring unnecessary risk to teachers and students as would be incurred in the use of services such as Facebook and MySpace, then policy tips toward denying access to them.  It is an ongoing conversation, however, so please continue to question policy you feel interferes with our mission to educate the children of Davis.