My past blog was on an article that discussed the question of whether or teachers should use modern-day networking sites to become "friends" with their students (biggest example was Facebook). The article pointed out both the pros and the cons of using technology for educational purposes. In a poll that the readers responded to, 83% of the readers said that teachers should not be "friends" with their students on social networking sites.
Those who believed that these friendships should be avoided believed so because of the fear of losing the "teacher-student" relationship, and the respect that goes with that. These people do not want students to be looking into every aspect of their lives, finding faults, or bringing personal issues into the classroom. Other teachers argue that they do want to see what is going on in the lives of their students.
Teachers who said yes that these sites can help build trust between the teacher and their students. The teachers are given an opportunity to be a good example for their students in real life by not posting anything inappropriate. These people also believe that the responsibility to avoid any sort of dangerous conduct that could occur on these sites falls to the teachers.
Once again, I agree with the majority of the people. The possible bad that could come out of using these sites to become your student's "friends" far outweighs the good that could come out of it.
However, as we come to understand that knowing WHO our students are becomes increasingly important to their education, does it not behoove us to use technologies such as this to do just that?
ReplyDelete