Prof: In defense of friending your student

I’ll just say, right up front, I absolutely do. If students request me, I always say yes (well, almost always). And I have found it to be really useful in my job. I’m generally a pretty die-hard Facebook fan. As a writer, it’s helped me in selling books and in making contacts with other writers. So I pretty much jumped right in when the first student friended me, says Emily Wall, assistant professor at the University of Alaska Southeast. Since then, I’ve heard some really good reasons not to — and surprisingly, most of those have come from my students. I let my advanced comp. students choose their own topics for an op-ed piece this fall, and they chose to argue about the value of Facebook. They had some pretty persuasive arguments against it. One of them told the story of having to change a relationship status just minutes after breaking up, and then getting deluged all day with “why??” questions from friends. That one made me pause and think.  And now a few weeks ago, I attended a webinar about professors who have been bullied (or worse) by students, and how to deal with aggression from students. The leader of the webinar strongly suggested we not interact with our students on Facebook, saying it just gives them more access to our lives and possible weapons if they decide to hurt us. That made me pause and think, too…

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More colleges and employers requesting applicants’ Facebook passwords than ever before

Last year, we reported that a police department in North Carolina was requiring applicants to provide their social network passwords to interviewers to be considered for a job, Yahoo! Tech reports. What was once an isolated practice has begun to spread, with more and more applicants being asked to surrender their privacy than ever before. It’s a terrifying new world for anyone who cherishes their privacy. Those applying for jobs at the Maryland Department of Corrections are asked to log in to their Facebook account. Though the interviewer doesn’t have direct control over the account, applicants are still asked to click through various posts and photos, giving their future employer a look at what goes on behind the privacy wall. And it’s not just job applicants being asked to share private information—college students are being monitored, too. Many student athletes are required to add a coach or other college official as a “friend,” so that their activity can be monitored. Some colleges even automate the process with software…

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Want to restrict the age of your Twitter followers? This new service can help

A social marketing platform is launching a new feature for alcohol brands on Twitter to help them make sure their tweets are reaching an age-appropriate audience, Mashable reports. Vitrue — a platform that helps companies such as American Express and McDonald’s manage their social-media presences across sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google+ — will introduce “Twitter Gate” to screen and control who has access to their promotional content. The move will also restrict interactions and engagement on Twitter with age-appropriate audiences. Vitrue said it is currently in talks with several brands and expects the feature to officially roll out for in the near future. In the meantime, Vitrue set up a demo Twitter site for a fictional alcohol brand called Brookstrut Brewery…

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Education Department wants tweets from teachers and students

February has been a busy month for K-12 education. On February 1, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan kicked it off by announcing that all U.S. schools should transition to digital textbooks within the next five years, U.S. News reports. On the 9th, President Obama waived 10 states from No Child Left Behind. And last week, the president proposed a 2013 budget that includes a $1.7 funding increase for education. Although these federal policy decisions may not seem directly connected to day-to-day classroom activities, the Department of Education is using Twitter to encourage teachers, administrators, parents, and students to play a more active role.

“We’ve found Twitter to be a really effective mode for two-way communication–where it’s not just [the Department of Education] putting out a press release or statement, but … something that’s soliciting feedback from everyone–teachers, students, [and] parents,” says Daren Briscoe, deputy press secretary for the Department of Education…

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How Johns Hopkins has become a leader in social media use for admissions

Johns Hopkins has a competitive program for social media-savvy students.

Dean Tsouvalas, editor-in-chief of StudentAdvisor.com, recently interviewed Daniel Creasy, associate director of undergraduate admissions at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. Johns Hopkins was ranked No. 1 on the Top 100 Social Media Colleges rankings released in fall 2011 and is recognized as a trailblazer in social media use among colleges.

This is the latest Q&A from StudentAdvisor, which has teamed up with eCampus News to share the latest social media strategies and trends in higher education in this monthly feature.

Here’s what Creasy had to say, including his philosophy that “more is better” when it comes to social networking platforms on campus.…Read More

Twitter uploads contact list data without consent; retains for 18 months

A harmless button in Twitter’s mobile application bears a resemblance to Path’s contact list uploading controversy, ZDNet reports. Twitter has admitted it stores user contact details — including phone numbers and eMail addresses — for an 18-month retention period when the service’s “Find friends” feature is used. New and existing Twitter followers alike can upload their contacts list and address books from a variety of platforms to see if any of their contacts match up to a Twitter registered account. Once users access the feature from one of its smartphone applications, it uploads the data and is subsequently stored for 18 months…

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Facebook may release more user data: students

U.S. social media group Facebook seems ready to publish categories of data it collects from users, an Austrian student group lobbying for stricter privacy rules said on Tuesday, Reuters reports. Facebook had agreed in December to overhaul privacy protection for more than half a billion users outside North America after a three-month investigation found that its privacy policies were overly complex and lacked transparency.

“This (data) access issue as well as having disclosed all the data categories they are holding about users is something where we found some progress,” Max Schrems, spokesman for the europe-v-facebook.org group, told reporters after meeting Facebook representatives in Vienna on Tuesday…

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Newark, NJ, told to produce Facebook pledge log

The state’s largest city must produce a list of documents related to a $100 million pledge to its public schools from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, a judge ruled Friday, the Associated Press reports. The ruling stemmed from of a lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a group representing Newark schoolchildren that is seeking more transparency about the donation. The Associated Press and other news outlets also have made such requests. State Superior Court Judge Rachel Davidson’s ruling requires the city to produce the list, believed to enumerate about 50 pages of emails pertaining to the donation, by Feb. 10. The city could seek to block the publishing of some of the emails on the list, according to ACLU New Jersey attorney Ed Barocas…

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Opinion: Teachers should use social networks to inform, not socialize

On the question of students, teachers, and social networking, CNN’s Schools of Thought blog posed this question on Jan. 20: Do you think there are more benefits or downsides to this kind of communication? As a public high school teacher, it’s a question I have pondered often, says Brad Boeker for Yahoo! News. How do schools make sure communication between students and teachers stays appropriate without placing outright bans on many useful, instant forms of communication? I think the answer lies in identifying the purpose of the communication and defining the word social in social networking. The easy approach would be for school boards to ban all communication outside of school between teachers and students. After all, isn’t the primary job of a school to look after the safety of its students? The problem with that knee-jerk solution is that it automatically cuts off many legitimate and creative uses of electronic communication. My former colleague, Joe Chianakas, now a professor at Illinois Central College, used a Twitter feed to deliver homework assignments and reminders about upcoming quizzes and tests. To me that is a terrific use of technology that helps engage students…

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Google search gets more personal, raises hackles

The search results will include pertinent information culled from the requestor's Plus account.

Google is sifting through the photos and commentary on its blossoming social network so its internet search results can include more personal information.

The additional personal touches that began to roll out Tuesday mark another step toward one of Google’s most ambitious goals. The internet search leader eventually hopes to know enough about each of its users so it can tailor its results to fit the unique interests of each person looking for something.

Different people should start seeing different search results more frequently now that Google Inc. is importing content from its 6-month-old Plus service, a product that the company introduced in an attempt to counter the popularity of Facebook’s online hangout and Twitter’s short-messaging hub. Google’s main search results page also will start highlighting more content from an older online photo service called Picasa.…Read More