I believe it would be important to not have individual accounts set up through the school for students younger than policy allows. (I did not realize that this was federal law that the rule was based upon.) I have not used a school account, but many of my the parents are friends on Facebook. I find that it has improved communication.
One of our school corporation's elementary schools has a PTO page. It is run by the parents and seems to be a great tool. It worried me at first that it would be a page for blasting teachers or school policy. However, they have done a great job of making it an informational page. I do think that we have to be cautious, though, of not excluding those not using this technology.
Classrooms using this media must make sure that the usage is truly academic. I don't believe it is appropriate to require individual accounts for the students. (Some things need to be parental decisions. Social media direct access is one of those.) How do we give the child access when the parent has not allowed this in their home? (Whether a personal choice or in one case that I know, as a punishment for inappropriate usage.)
Good comment about the PTA using the school's website for an informational page. Seems like these great folks do want to be positive and support the schools and in an online environment within the school corporation - i.e. their own page within the school corporation site, they are going to use it to be supportive, without negativity. This in turn will make their face-to-face conversations positive, too.
ReplyDeleteAs a parent who is tech savvy, I would be upset if my child were using Facebook in the classroom. We've made a parental decision, my husband and me, that neither of us, nor our kids, would use Facebook. I got the feeling years ago that this was one platform I wanted to stay clear of and it was a great decision for me and my family. If the school were to require it or sanction it somehow, I would have to ask for an alternative assignment. We simply don't want to do something that everyone else is doing. So your concern about parental decisions is right on - even tech savvy teachers may not want their kids to have all the options that others have.
I run our School's Facebook page. It is a great way to celebrate student successes and to get information out to parents. (We have permission to share pictures and seldom do we add names and if we do it is only first names to protect the students.) We have even been able to reach parents with information that previously they did not bother to read in a newsletter because we provided them the information in their digital world. We do not support nor encourage students to use Facebook. This is strictly a parent piece for us.
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