Who knew Facebook could be so controversial?

I've been a little neglectful with blogging this week. Not that I'm resistant to blogging, in comparison to having to "tweet" I really don't mind. But, when I get busy it's hard to remember to blog. Kris and I have been doing some early spring cleaning since my parents are coming in to town tomorrow!!! I'm very excited, both to have company and that that company is my parents. I'll also finally get to do some official wedding planning since we're going to look at venues and my mom wants to do a little dress browsing.

Anyway....to the actual blog topic this week :) Last week's tech talk was really interesting, particularly because of the research that was presented about how useful Facebook could be in the classroom while at the same time the abundance of privacy concerns that come along with Facebook. I still don't think I could get on board with using Facebook in the classroom simply because of all of the privacy concerns that come along with it. While it's great to try to reach your students by using technology that they're already using A LOT I still believe there are other forms of social media, or even learning management systems, that can serve the same purpose and be just as effective when used properly. People divulge so much information about themselves on Facebook and I'm sure most students would be really concerned about the possibility of the professor knowing they were out drinking last night instead of working on the big paper that's due in class that day.

Another concern with Facebook that we discussed in class and I'm still a little on the fence about is friending students on Facebook. I've had friend requests from current students and just ignored those. My policy is not to become friends with students if they're a current student. But, the new dilemma I'm having is past students friending me. Since becoming instructor of record of a class I've had small class sizes and really gotten to know my students. Even now, it's almost two months into the semester and I know each of my students by first and last name and have had non-course related conversations with a few of them. We all know as instructors, and students, that occasionally you connect with a teacher or student more so than others. So the dilemma becomes, is it ever appropriate to become friends with a former student, especially if that student was one of the ones that you "connected" with? I like Melissa's suggestion of not becoming friends with a student until after they've graduated. It does get around the issues associated with: what if they're in your class later? or what if other students see you're friends with one individual and are hurt that you chose not to friend them? Lots of things to think about.

The other concern I have is how people, particularly supervisors and potential employers, interpret and feel about things we post on our Facebook pages. I can't say there's anything that I'm ashamed of on my page. But, as Brendan's problem with an internship supervisor illustrates, you never know what someone else is going to take offense to (you wouldn't think a 23 year old holding a beer in a picture would be a big deal). I try to keep my privacy settings as private as possible but still try to keep in mind what is and is not appropriate to share in this sort of way.