Doug Johnson

Don’t Confuse Social Networking with Educational Networking

Head for the Edge, March/April 2010

Facebook Now Growing By Over 700,000 Users A Day - AllFacebook, Feb 27, 2009 <www.allfacebook.com>

I mentioned Facebook a couple months ago in a workshop I gave on the role of Web 2.0 resources in education. A question was asked that I had not before considered: Should a teacher “friend” his/her students on Facebook? My off-the-cuff response was “Absolutely not.” My gut reaction was that doing so would violate the teacher/student relationship and could lead to actual or perceived inappropriate interactions.

Let me be frank. When I introduce Facebook to educators, I admit upfront that I don’t see the fascination with this form of communication, and moreover, I don’t see its educational usefulness. Other Web 2.0 tools like wikis, blogs, threaded discussions and such, yes; but Facebook, no.

So I didn’t feel truly qualified to answer the question about friending students and felt a little guilty responding so definitively. So it was a relief to see Nancy Willard’s strongly worded email on the WWWedu listserv that seconded my opinion. She wrote:

Any teacher who links to a student on MySpace or Facebook is an ABSOLUTE FOOL!!!!! I strongly support and advise district policies against this for two reasons:

1. There is a vast amount of flirting that goes on on these sites. Student get crushes on teachers. When a teacher gets a flirtatious message from a student, that teacher is already in trouble. Respond back with warmth and you are an online predator. Respond critically and the student could exact revenge. The teachers who are most likely to get into major trouble are the younger ones – who have not had to deal with student crushes before and who may still be in the flirting online mode. The risks include arrest and life as a registered sex offender.
2. People on these sites send friendship requests to friends of people they have linked to. A teacher would become the “guarantor” of all of his or her online friends – including all of the material these friends post and the friend’s interactions with students.

Wise advice. Yet we as adults have experienced the power of online networking as a resource in our own professional development. Where would many of us be without LM_Net, Nings, blogs, wikis and their ilk? Networks are powerful learning tools. So why do we as adults often remain so cautious, even frightened, about using networking tools with our students?

Might we be confusing social networking and educational networking?

Let’s see if an analogy might work here. Most teachers would not find it proper to hang out with their students at the local bowling alley. Healthy adults tend to play with people their own age. Yet, coaching a school bowling team or even chaperoning a class party at a bowling alley is perfectly acceptable. It’s not the bowling alley that’s the issue; it’s the context.

Nancy observes:

There is – and should remain – a vast difference between “social media” and “educational media.” When educators blur the distinctions, this causes significant problems.

Are schools making this distinction in policy-making and writing guidelines?

I’ve come to the conclusion that we should stop using the term social networking to describe the kinds of collaborative online learning experiences we’d like students doing as a part of their formal education. The term connotes recreational or frivolous use of Internet resources.

Instead I propose we talk about “educational networking” and “social learning.” When we describe our activities and tools with these terms, they not only sound more substantial, but more accurately reflect what we’re trying to do with these technologies.

Regardless of the vocabulary used, educators need some guidelines about how to use networking sites, both social and educational, professionally and personally. (Yes, adults can and do get in trouble online without kids being involved at all.)

To spark the conversation about what reasonable guideline might look like, Jen Hegna of the Byron (MN) schools and I wrote a simple document “Guidelines for Educators Using Social and Educational Networking Sites” that you can find here: <doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2009/8/20/networking-guidelines-revised.html>.  Use it and improve it.

John Seely Brown and Richard P. Adler cite studies that the ability to form “learning groups” in which participants collaboratively construct personal meaning for content studied is the most important factor in college students being successful.

We must give our students the opportunity to experience and use such learning groups – whether face-to-face or online. But we need to clarify the difference between social and educational networks and provide both adult and young users guidance in using them wisely.

Brown, John S and Richard Adler, “Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail and Learning 2.0” Educause Review, Jan/Feb 2008.

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