Privacy is one of my biggest concerns in terms of social media and if I am being completely honest, I do not know much about FIPPA although I am starting to know more through this program. I know that whenever facebook changes something the first thing I do is go check my privacy and account settings, I want my friends to see all my pictures but not necessarily the rest of the world. I have actually been thinking about privacy
and students on facebook a lot lately for two reasons. First because I have had a few former students try to add me and with this in mind I have decided to make a rule for myself that I will add them if they still want to be friends after they graduate (a friend of mine made that rule with her students and I thought it was pretty smart). Second, a friend of mine is teaching overseas – actually two friends have done this lately – and they have been posting pictures of their school, their classroom and more recently their students (faces are clear as day) and I have wondered on more than one occasion if they have received the parent’s permission to do so.
There is no doubt in my mind that Julia is correct when she states: “Posting student content on the internet (whether in a ‘secure’ school district site or more open locations like Wordpress or Twitter) provides many learning opportunities for students” (A K-12 Primer for British Columbia Teachers on Posting Students’ Work Online) but I am still struggling with how to do so securely. I am having my students share their essays with each other for peer editing and this is done over the internet as they are all living in various places around the province but I assign the partners in our secure classroom and they have each other’s email to send their work securely. I am not sure if they would feel comfortable or if their parents would be okay with them sharing it
with the world via twitter (sometimes I was a little leery of sharing my work on twitter for courses in this program).
Going back to my friends who post pictures of their classrooms and student’s faces, Julia states: “In the case of data posted on the internet, a student’s first name, combined with class or teacher information can be sufficient to uniquely identify an individual. While all this data may not be on one page on a site or service, if it is distributed across a site or sites (service or services) that information can be easily brought together to identify the specific student.” Yes, information on a variety of sites can be brought together to figure it out but for the three teachers I know, all you have to do is look in one of their photo albums and everything someone would
need is in one place, this really scares me the more I think about it. (Side note, I just took a break from this reflection to facebook message my friends and ask if they have parental consent for the pictures).
With everything that I have said, I would be very interested in trying to use social media with my students. I am starting to come around to the idea (as I learn more about the protocols) that it would not be a horrible idea. I am becoming more confident in my knowledge of my boundaries and what it would require from the parent’s end to get started with this. Since I have a closed, password protected classroom, sharing work is easy with my students to another one of my students but twitter would open up the possibility of connecting with classrooms overseas which I have always wanted to do.
References:
Hengstler, J. (2013). A K-12 primer for British
Columbia teachers posting students' work online.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qq03qytnj9k0fbg/Primer%20on%20Posting%20Minor%20Students%20Final.pdf
and students on facebook a lot lately for two reasons. First because I have had a few former students try to add me and with this in mind I have decided to make a rule for myself that I will add them if they still want to be friends after they graduate (a friend of mine made that rule with her students and I thought it was pretty smart). Second, a friend of mine is teaching overseas – actually two friends have done this lately – and they have been posting pictures of their school, their classroom and more recently their students (faces are clear as day) and I have wondered on more than one occasion if they have received the parent’s permission to do so.
There is no doubt in my mind that Julia is correct when she states: “Posting student content on the internet (whether in a ‘secure’ school district site or more open locations like Wordpress or Twitter) provides many learning opportunities for students” (A K-12 Primer for British Columbia Teachers on Posting Students’ Work Online) but I am still struggling with how to do so securely. I am having my students share their essays with each other for peer editing and this is done over the internet as they are all living in various places around the province but I assign the partners in our secure classroom and they have each other’s email to send their work securely. I am not sure if they would feel comfortable or if their parents would be okay with them sharing it
with the world via twitter (sometimes I was a little leery of sharing my work on twitter for courses in this program).
Going back to my friends who post pictures of their classrooms and student’s faces, Julia states: “In the case of data posted on the internet, a student’s first name, combined with class or teacher information can be sufficient to uniquely identify an individual. While all this data may not be on one page on a site or service, if it is distributed across a site or sites (service or services) that information can be easily brought together to identify the specific student.” Yes, information on a variety of sites can be brought together to figure it out but for the three teachers I know, all you have to do is look in one of their photo albums and everything someone would
need is in one place, this really scares me the more I think about it. (Side note, I just took a break from this reflection to facebook message my friends and ask if they have parental consent for the pictures).
With everything that I have said, I would be very interested in trying to use social media with my students. I am starting to come around to the idea (as I learn more about the protocols) that it would not be a horrible idea. I am becoming more confident in my knowledge of my boundaries and what it would require from the parent’s end to get started with this. Since I have a closed, password protected classroom, sharing work is easy with my students to another one of my students but twitter would open up the possibility of connecting with classrooms overseas which I have always wanted to do.
References:
Hengstler, J. (2013). A K-12 primer for British
Columbia teachers posting students' work online.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qq03qytnj9k0fbg/Primer%20on%20Posting%20Minor%20Students%20Final.pdf