EDU651 Week 3

The holidays are over and it is back to work and higher education.

Week 3 was eye opening and I have come to realize that any information about our likes and dislikes and our opinions are not private but rather they are easily accessible by others and can be interpreted in many ways. I read an article from The Journal written by Dian Schaffhauser (2008) about a teacher who posted an offensive comment on Facebook about the school where she works. The local newspaper conducted a search on the social networking sites of individuals who identified themselves as staff members of this particular school and when the comment was discovered, it was reported and the teacher was disciplined for her comment.

Educators and leaders are responsible for their online content. Life is an education. Much of what we learn comes through life experiences. Students, children and adults are influenced by their leaders and educators. We should be a positive example for others rather than a negative one. A respect for diversity is another reason why educators and leaders need to be responsible for their online content. We can't very well expect others to be tolerant of differences if we are not.

However, we also have a right to our opinions and free speech and should have a reasonable expectation that our comments on social networking sites are only available to those who we invite to read our information. Therefore, educators and leaders need to be vigilant and stay abreast of privacy changes to social networks. Facebook recently changed the privacy policies and much of the information in our profiles that was once available to only our friends is now open to the public; unless you were one of the wise ones who read the privacy notification and updated your profile visibility.

Using social networks for educational purposes can be collaborative and provides an environment that engages students and educators must protect the privacy of their students by understanding what can be seen by others on the Internet.

Retrieved from http://www.thejournal.com/articles/23611 on January 4, 2011.