TheApple

Do you accept friend requests from students when you use social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace? Why or why not?

If they've requested and if I've been able to talk to their parents about it. I keep my page very private, so if the student also has a "friends only" policy, and doesn't allow access to "friends of friends" it should be okay.  The only side of myself that I reveal on Facebook that I don't share in the classroom is my political views. But I believe in civil discourse, so I don't think exposure to that can be bad for a student, if they and their parents are pre-warned.

My current history professor has the 'not while you're my student' policy and I think when I become a teacher myself I will go along the same lines. 

However, that being said, I do plan on having a Twitter and Facebook account for the class.  So that if a student is having trouble, or they missed several days, they have several ways to get ahold of me and ask for help or check on missed assignments other than just the class website.  I may even set up a proboards forum page so that my students can have discussions with other classes about the work they're doing.  I know that kids of my generation are a lot more comfortable with the idea of online interaction as opposed to face-to-face interaction when asking for help or questions they feel dumb for needed to ask.

It looks like the friending current students is something educators on TheApple don't do- a wise choice to keep your professional life and personal life separate!

Current students?  Absotively posilutely no way.... And likely never since most of them would not want to anyway, but more likely it would not seem to me to be a sound approach vis-a-vis professionalism. 

This networking thing can be overdone, and teachers especially but also all who work with youth must be careful.  My plan is to error towards the conservative and keep it to adults.