I hear a lot about digital citizenship for our students, and I think we have to deal with effective digital citizenship for teachers, as well. Digital citizenship encompasses appropriate and responsible use of technology, and commonly includes topics such as communication, literacy, etiquette, rights and responsibilities, health and wellness, and security. I want to advocate that we should include understanding how to use social media within the communication strand.

Effective digital citizenship has to include social networking, and I’ve heard too many horror stories recently about teachers and Facebook, for example. The December – January issue of Learning and Leading with Technology (from ISTE) includes an article entitled, the Dark Side of Facebook. The article describes several recent cases in which teachers either lost their jobs or were put on administrative leave because of things they posted (or that other people posted about them) on Facebook. It’s a good article and worth reading. Teachers need to be very careful about their public online persona, and reading this article will help people to understand just how public Facebook is, regardless of their privacy settings.

I have a colleague in my school district, whose daughter is teacher, and started in a new school district this year. During the new teacher orientation, when people spoke about Facebook to her and the other new teachers, whatever they said frightened her to the extent that she closed her Facebook account totally.

In my point of view “just say no” is not a responsible and professional response. Instead, educators should cultivate an online persona, using LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, that they could show as part of their resume. Their online, digital footprint should be something they can be proud of and could point to as an asset to their profession.

80% of jobs that are advertised today are advertised only online. All perspective employers research candidates online – they check LinkedIn and Facebook and Twitter and they make judgments about whether they should hire someone or not. Like it or not, part of our lives is online. I’ve heard from recent college graduates, who did not know enough to clean up their Facebook profiles before applying for internships and graduate programs, and learned the hard way that their online digital footprint was hurting them rather than helping them. My point is that rather than opting out, I suggest that students and educators alike, leverage social media to highlight positive aspects of their studies and work.

Rather than canceling your Facebook account for fear of a costly misstep, use your Facebook account to showcase what’s best about you. But definitely think of it as an open forum. Always consider that the parents of your students or your principal or your superintendent could be reading your posts. Make sure that what you post would not be embarrassing if it were reprinted on the front page of the local newspaper. And some posts or tweets should be things that contribute positively to your school or town or students or to the profession in general. For example, there are some teachers I follow on Twitter, who share so many great resources and lesson plans, that I’m sure any principal who followed them would want to interview them for openings. @SimplySuzy (on twitter) is an educator in Massachusetts who uses Twitter in a way that builds her professional reputation. I know many educators, who use Facebook to share innocuous personal information, like books they’re reading, sports teams they are following, and hobbies they pursue. But in addition, they share educational links and resources.

The most effective users of social media, build a true learning community online, sharing resources and learning from others. They can post questions and pose problems in these social forums, and get back useful advice and resources very quickly.

So I think we’re doing educators a disservice if we scare them out of using social media. Instead, we should be encouraging educators to model effective use of social media, effective digital citizenship, for their students. Students today need to become adept in these media, and the more our teachers are involved and contributing in social media, the more competent they will be in guiding students.

Related posts:

Being Googleable

Social Media – Resources for Educators

Googleable refers to something that is able to be found by searching on Google, the Internet search engine. Our students may not realize how much of what they post is googleable and very durable. Even after they have deleted the silly pictures of themselves at a party, or the ill-advised rantings about a teacher or friend, the Internet footprint remains, and it is quite difficult to erase entirely.
Ask any college admissions officer, human resources representative, or school superintendent if they “Google” applicants, and you will learn that most do. At a conference I recently attended, Will Richardson said that many also check social networking sites such as FaceBook and MySpace. Then he raised this question – what are educators doing to insure that students “Google well” when they are themselves the applicants (see http://weblogg-ed.com/2008/making-kids-googlable/)?
His question resonated with me. Don’t we want our graduates to be able to proudly direct people to their online presence? I think so. However, I’m afraid that there is an under-representation of positive, impressive material posted by our students. I think it would be a worthwhile project for educators to help students build online portfolios that showcase their quality work and contributions. Students should know that there are those will be judging them by their online presence and that they can use the web to manage that presence to make a positive impression.

We can help make students aware of their digital identity. We should teach students, especially in the upper grades, to Google themselves periodically and review (with an objective eye) what comes up. It’s easy to do – I suggest you Google your own name and review what you find. Does anything come up? Is there anything that would impress (or worry) parents, graduate school admissions officers, school committee members, school administrators? Is what you find a showcase of your finest work and your best qualities? It could be.

I have heard many educators say that students should avoid posting anything on the web that can be related back to them. I think that since the web and Google are now being used by mainstream institutions that “just say no” is simplistic and unhelpful. It is time to have students work the web to their advantage. In a world where quality contributions to collaborative spaces actually increase the likelihood of being hired, the answer is not to post nothing online. Rather, we should be helping students to monitor their online existence and to make decisions and contributions based on the knowledge that others (besides their friends) can and do see what they post.

Related articles:
You’re a Nobody Unless Your Name Googles Well
Wall Street Journal, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117856222924394753.html

Why You May Need an Online Persona

http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/03/28/why-you-may-need-an-online-persona/