to friend or not to friend… what an interesting question
I’ve attended meetings recently with several school Public Information Officers and the “Friend Question” is a hot one. There is no doubt that Social Media is here to stay, in an ever evolving form no less! There is always the question of “How do we leverage this to keep our kids engaged in the classroom?”, quickly followed by “What is an appropriate level of involvement?”
The Chicago Tribune posted an article this week: Should students ‘friend’ teachers online? It’s a great article that shines light on one of the grayest of the gray areas! On the one hand you have a teacher that is clearly using the tool in a positive way to keep his students updated on lessons and deadlines, but you also have the valid argument that it opens a big door into over-share-land. (Which opens an entirely new can of worms about educating our youth about over sharing online in general).
I believe this is a debate we will be facing for years to come, especially given the constant state of change in which Social Media seems to exist. Perhaps we can use Foursquare to check us into a world where privacy and liability issues aren’t so risky…
