Within digital technologies on the 7th of February I looked at documents which gave detailed information on how teachers can maintain their professional reputation. Many teachers and professionals use social media networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook to contact their friends and family around the world. However, it is very important that they are careful on social media so as to keep their job safe and the young people they teach. On these social networking sites, it is not a great idea to accept friend requests on personal accounts from pupils recently taught, pupils or parents at the school their working at.
If professional people accept these requests then they are making themselves very vulnerable as they will be allowing others to access their personal information which could be shared by many people. Teachers would then be opening themselves up to accusations of inappropriate contact and may even be exposed as an unwanted contact. However, some teachers do choose to use Facebook or any other social networking site to contact and communicate with their pupils whether it be for topic work or homework support. This is a very quick, and useful way for communication but teachers do have to be wary of the minimum age that can access the website.
Teachers should always think very carefully about the posts they share and before posting any posts, updating status’ or having a conversation which relates to the school, parents, pupils which could get a teacher into a very bad situation. Other features of social media such as profile pictures, cover photos or when joining groups or liking things is something else teachers have to be extremely aware of as features like this can reveal a lot about the teachers choices or opinions towards a particular subject.
Many social networking sites have an age requirement of thirteen years old and so within a primary school, the most likely approach would be not to introduce children to these social networking sites or to use them to contribute to learning. In many schools, social networking sites are blocked so that children cannot access them on computers. However, there are some potential benefits to using social networking sites within education and with well thought out lesson planning they can be used with responsibility. This would give the teacher the opportunity to make essential lessons which could result in collaborative learning for all children.
