 |
| https://curemd.wordpress.com/2012/07/13/social-media-in-healthcare/ |
I
am reminded on an incident nearly 10 years ago now….when I first decided to
have a Teacher profile on Facebook as well as a private Facebook account. So many children [even though they shouldn't
be on Facebook, they are] want to keep in touch with teachers – my decision rested
on using it for educational purposes and continuing to educate students even
after they’d left my classroom. It also opened up the conversation with
students within my class to feel comfortable discussing issues with me. Now I
am fully aware that they shouldn't have been on Facebook as the requirement is
being 13 years or over, however, I am also not going to be an ostrich and stick
my head in the sand and think it’s not happening when it clearly is. An
incident arose in quiet conversation where a female student asked me how to
stop someone from requesting friendship via Facebook. She had been approached a
number of times by the same male whom she did not know. Am I pleased she felt
comfortable enough to talk to me YES! Am I grateful she knew I had a Facebook
page and knowledge of the Privacy settings YES! Should she have been able to
discuss it with her family YES! But she didn’t……too often students feel more
comfortable discussing personal things with unrelated people – in this case I
am relieved she could ask for help and that I could help her deal with the
situation and stop it happening again.
Henderson,
Auld & Johnson (2014) stated that “the ethical issues are largely founded
on the understanding that both students and teachers have lifeworlds outside of
school that are characterized by complex identities, social practices, and
discourse that influence how they engage or disengage with each other and with
social media texts such as Facebook” (p.2) |
| https://ellismetcalf.wordpress.com/2016/04/24/social-media-ethics/ |
There
is a real chance of opening oneself up to cyber attacks from parents and or
students by having a Teacher Facebook page – but the odds are already there
regardless. A website called ‘Rate my teacher’ came into action some 10 or so
years ago – actively promoting rating education institutions and staff on a
scale. Thankfully this particular site seems to have been revamped to give a
more positive spin on teachers, it certainly wasn’t the case then. With the
rise of social media platforms that give people a ‘faceless’ voice there will
always be the possibility of cyber-bullying. Look at the amount of trolling
that goes on with our own NZ celebrities. Polly Gillespie seems to put up
with an awful lot of cyber attacks. So my ethics are firmly planted in the – we
must educate our students arena. They need to know and understand that cyber
bullying is just as bad as face-to-face. They need to know that there are REAL
people on the other end of blogs, Twitter feeds, Instagram accounts, Facebook
accounts, Snapchats etc. Bullying should not be tolerated anywhere – not even
in cyber space! Henderson et al (2014) stated that “when students are
encouraged to examine and critique their use of social media, such as Facebook,
when interacting with the teacher or with fellow students, they are being asked
to behave, converse, share, and self-regulate in ways that are different to
their already established practices” (p.6).
With
the continuing rise of online gaming forums, which allow ‘conversations’
between strangers and the continuing, rise of social networks such as Snapchat
and Instagram there is a real need to discuss ethics and cyber safety with our
students. We have a duty to keep our students safe in school…why not in cyber
space too. They need to learn the protocols of cyber safety as many of them are
already online. We had an incident recently of a student being verbally abused
by a number of other students on Instagram. According to the Ministry of Education
& Netsafe (2015) nearly 45% of youth have been attacked online (p.11), I am
guessing this number has probably grown, and this is only the percentage we
KNOW ABOUT – what about the youth that say nothing, that tell no one, what’s
that percentage?
Should this be up to parents to monitor? Yes! Are we going to rely on all parents doing that? No. We are living in an age where students have devices everywhere – they WILL find a way to be online! It’s in their DNA! We need to teach the basics if nothing else, especially as devices are being used in the classroom – regardless of whether they are on social media sites or a locked in school hub…the option to be unsafe is still there. Our students ARE online. They ARE communicating in digital form. It’s the 21st Century.
Should this be up to parents to monitor? Yes! Are we going to rely on all parents doing that? No. We are living in an age where students have devices everywhere – they WILL find a way to be online! It’s in their DNA! We need to teach the basics if nothing else, especially as devices are being used in the classroom – regardless of whether they are on social media sites or a locked in school hub…the option to be unsafe is still there. Our students ARE online. They ARE communicating in digital form. It’s the 21st Century.
A
great source of information for your classroom on Digital Citizenship is:
https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/resources - Lee Crockett
& Andrew Churches - Education speakers and authors
References
Chaffey,
D. (2016). Global Social Media Research Summary 2016. Retrieved from http://www.smartinsights.com/social-media-marketing/social-media-strategy/new-global-social-media-research/
Crockett,
L., Churches, A., & Global Digital Citizen Team. (2016). The Global Digital
Citizen. Retrieved from http://globaldigitalcitizen.org/
Henderson,
M., Auld, G., & Johnson, N. F. (2014). Ethics of teaching with social
media, 1–7.
Metcalf,
E. (2016). Social Media Ethics. Retrieved from https://ellismetcalf.wordpress.com/2016/04/24/social-media-ethics/
Ministry
of Education, & Netsafe. (2015). Digital Technology Safe and responsible
Use in Schools.
