Social Networking and Teachers

The Internet can be a scary place. We sometimes forget that things that we do on here are constantly being archived and sent to search engines. When I searched for myself on pipl.com, I got a result, but could not see anything without paying. I googled my name as well, and that search was more fruitful. First, I searched for "Lynsey Harrison,"and there were only four or five links that were actually me on the first six pages of results:

http://twitter.com/TheLynzer

This is a link to my Twitter profile, which I use to follow other people, not to post.  It was cashed. My profile on Twitter was recently set to private, so even if I show up in search results, only people I know will be able to see anything recent that I have posted.

http://www.willamette.edu/dept/osa/programs/honors/index.html

This is a link to a page on Willamette University's (where I did my undergraduate work) website. my name is listed there because I received an award. I am not really concerned with people knowing that.

http://www.docstoc.com/docs/47437940/WELCOME-TO-THE-WILLAMETTE-UNIVERSITY-Soybean-Phospholipid

This is a link to the program from Willamette's 2009 Student Scholarship Recognition Day, where I presented a paper. Again, I am not worried about people seeing this.

http://www.alumniclass.com/reynoldshs/alumni-profile?id=4351386

This was a link to my profile on my high school's alumni association website. My profile cannot be viewed by anyone who is not a member, so it is not an issue.

Next, I searched for my full name "Lynsey Nicole Harrison," which only brought up one result:

http://www.facebook.com/lynsey.nicole

This is my personal Facebook profile. Most of my information is private, so people who search for me can only see my current profile picture and who my friends are. These are the settings I have chosen because I feel that they allow people who know me to find me, but keep creepy people from knowing too much about me.

The main "handle" that I use is "littllyns."When I searched for that, the main entry that related to me was the following:

http://www.sheldoncomics.com/users/littllyns/

This is a link to some stats about how much I have posted on the forum of a web comic I enjoy. There is not any sensitive information on this page, but I might delete it just because I do not use it often.

I think that teachers are role models for their students. I think this is true in any realm where they have contact with students. Teachers may be able to differentiate between work time and personal time, but students will always view them as teachers. This does not mean that teachers have to live perfect lives, but that they should make an effort to keep questionable personal activities private. Teachers have to judiciously decide what content will be available to students, and take responsibility for what is. If they have inappropriate content in a place where students can access it, they may have to answer for that. 

Of course, I believe that teachers legally have a right to free speech, and should not be fired for being controversial. Still, I believe that they should be sensitive to their community and think carefully about the kind of example they are setting for their students.

In the article we read for this assignment, I was most curious about the teacher who was fired because of the nude pictures that her photographer husband had taken of her. I believe that, as long as the photos were non-pornographic, they should not have been grounds for her to be fired.

I will personally choose not to allow students to see my social networking information (Facebook profile, Twitter account, blog, etc.) until they have at least graduated from high school. Even then, I would choose students that I wanted to keep in touch with, not just anyone.