Sorry Facebook

I said in my last post I was on a steep learning curve when it came to using the internet for teaching.  I was obviously not as far up the curve as I thought.  As I started making friends with my students I began to feel less and less comfortable about the amount of information that it gave me about these young peoples' lives and Sue made it clear that she had serious misgivings about the way I was going about things.

So, I started to do some more extensive reading about Facebook's policies and their advice to educators.  I had not even realised that Facebook require you to be at least 13 years old before you can set up an account.  Many of my students ignore this by making themselves out to be older.  This also has implications because Facebook restrict the access people can have to the timelines of children aged 13-17, so by making yourself, say, eighteen when actually you are twelve, you over-ride all this stuff.

Anyway I've put my own house in order by deactivating my new Facebook account and all the friendships that went with it and making it clear to students that they must by over thirteen to join my Facebook English group.  I will also advise parents that I have set the group up and offer them a veto on whether their child can be in it.  Now things seem to be on a much better footing, my students are starting to use the site to communicate in English, but I am not their friend and know nothing about their lives that they don't disclose to the group as a whole.

I am still suspicious of Facebook and its motives, but I can also see that its rules and policies on setting up accounts and being who we say we are do serve a valid purpose.