Social Networking: Separate but Equal

I feel a little unpopular.

A Google search delivered information on my friends blog from his reportorial romp through Southeast Asia, but not my own blog from my year spent in Thailand.

http://oursharedworld.blogspot.com/2007/10/behind-gates.html

A few pages later, I found race results from my High School cross-country days:

http://www.prefontainerun.com/race-results/teamscore.php?ryear=1998&goverall=M&teamtype=1

A page or two after that, I finally uncovered my name in the website of my current employer:

http://www.nayapdx.org/about/staff-and-board.php

The Pipl search brought up a random account I create and forgot:

http://www.wayn.com/profiles/MarimayaK

However, I respect my unpopularity on the web as diligent editing and savvy ambiguity. The only thing I would like to change would be a more prolific positive image of myself, i.e. webpages, blogs, articles, quotes, and causes. I would like my name to appear next to things I believe in, care about, or simply enjoy. In other words, I would like students, parents, and colleagues to think I have a life.

I do believe that teacher's should be held to community standards. A teacher must continuously reiterate their desire to influence their community by interacting or rehearsing the standards assigned to their position by the community. A teacher is a teacher no matter the venue, and a teacher must remember that the classroom acts a conceptual structure not just a building. The The classroom exists wherever your class gathers, whether that is at the supermarket, the concert hall, or the sidewalk. A teacher must command respect and not distribute relativity; therefore, if something exists in the classroom, then it must exist out it.

Teachers must understand that their social networking profiles are public knowledge, unless otherwise marked. I am inspired by the teacher's who use Facebook to communicate with students about deadlines, notes, and test dates, but if that is how you are going to use Facebook, then the line must be clear. A teacher must realize that they need to separate their public and private lives. I support creating a separate profile for your students that can be made public and that only deals with public issues. I am amazed that 40% of the population using Myspace is over the age of 35, and the public decries that we have a cyberbulling epidemic with our teenagers. These people are using the site for the same purposes. Therefore, it is even more imperative that teacher's rehearse the community standards both off- and on-line.

I know that I will continue to vigilantly examine the content made available to the students I interact with, and make myself available for positive modeling.