I’ve written about education and social media ethics on this blog before. My point at that time concerned the dilemma of using multiple online identities on Twitter and I concluded that education benefited hugely from social media.
Now, however, my question is situated in a slightly different context: what are the problems associated with teachers using social media to interact with students?
Social media has only recently been introduced into education but it has been adopted by a very large number of teachers and students very quickly. Consequently, there is a huge amount of advice on the internet (when isn’t there?) about what teachers – and to a lesser extent pupils – should be doing to ensure that interactions are appropriate.
The majority of this advice focuses on how teachers ought to conduct themselves. New Zealand Teachers’ Council (NZTC) suggests that you view online activity with students in the same way you would a face-to-face meeting. You must consider the ‘tone and content’ of posts and ensure that the content remains relevant and appropriate to the topic at hand.
The NZTC also highlights the often serious implications of personal teacher-student relationships outside of school. ‘If learners contact you by social media and ask for help or advice relating to sensitive personal issues, social media isn’t the right forum for providing support,’ their website says.
Beyond innocently discussing personal information, one online forum on the e-notes website has posed the problem of teachers and pupils contacting each other about inappropriate topics, possibly even making sexual advances. This is becoming increasingly more common, with many cases making it to local or national press: a male Maths teacher from Nottingham and a female Chemistry from Lancashire are just two cases of teachers – male and female – grooming pupils using social media.
The e-notes comments dedicate much of their debate to the potential for cyberbullying when teachers and students interact professionally over the internet. Students who object to some constructive criticism from a teacher – which is perfectly understandable given that tone may be misinterpreted in written communications – could respond through cyberbullying. Given the very strong approach taken by schools against it, I’m not sure how common this is. My dad was a teacher for several years and I’m almost certain that he never experienced this – and he was an IT teacher!
Check out this video for the positives (yes, there are some!) of social media in education:
Bibliography:
New Zealand Teachers’ Council, Guidelines on Ethical Use of Social Media <http://teachersandsocialmedia.co.nz/sites/default/files/resources/Guidelines%20-%20ethical%20use%20of%20social%20media_0.pdf> [accessed 16 November 2015]
Rebecca Sherdley, ‘Maths teacher Mark Haywood groomed pupil at Notts school for sex’, Nottingham Post, 8 November 2013 <http://www.nottinghampost.com/Maths-teacher-Mark-Haywood-groomed-pupil-Notts/story-20051838-detail/story.html> [accessed 16 November 2015]
‘Social Media for Education’ video <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOXPBYx5AOU> [accessed 16 November 2015]
James Tozer, ‘Woman teacher sent 2,000 sex texts to pupil’, Daily Mail, 28 June 2014 <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2672950/Woman-teacher-sent-2-000-sex-texts-pupil-Staff-member-30-used-social-network-send-explicit-messages-Year-11-boy.html> [accessed 16 November 2015]
‘What are the ethical issues of teachers having social media contact with students?’, e-notes, 12 November 2014 <http://www.enotes.com/homework-help/what-ethical-issues-teachers-having-social-media-472467> [accessed 16 November 2015]
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