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April 25, 2006

great facebook guidelines for administrators

Posted by Liz Lawley

While preparing for a panel on “Blogs, Wikis, MMORPGs, and YASNS: Shaking Up Traditional Education” at the Milken Institute Global Conference, I stumbled across Fred Stutzman’s post “How University Administrators Should Approach the Facebook: Ten Rules.” Great stuff. I particularly liked #9:

Since you can’t make Facebook go away, and even if you tried to, you couldn’t, you might as well accept it and deal with it. The fact of the matter is that students need to understand the long view, and they need to understand the importance of the written record. They’ve spent their entire lives online, and they are completely comfortable posting information about themselves online. Now that they’re 18, economic motivations step in, and it is our obligation and duty to protect them. Telling them not to say anything controversial, or forcing them to use privacy settings just won’t cut it - remember, the students who are on the Facebook want to be found and listened to. What they need to understand is the context. They have to understand the need to act now on behalf of the person they’ll be in 4 or 5 or 6 years. Give them that context. Explain to them the value of maintaining a self-image they can be proud of down the road. Work with them on this, not against them - it may be your only chance.

That advice should be going to parents and teachers, as well—not just administrators. Thinking about the “long view” of these media—blogs, wiki editing history, social network site profiles—is a skill that we need to be teaching kids.

Comments (18) + TrackBacks (0) | Category: social software

COMMENTS

1. Kevin Farnham on April 25, 2006 9:41 PM writes...

The last safety tip in our soon to be published book "MySpace Safety: 51 Tips for Teens and Parents" is about this same topic, but we project the time scale 15 years into the future, into a time when data aggregation and correlation software can automatically produce a top-level document that provides links that ultimately can display everything the person ever posted on the Internet.

It's titled "Can You Ever Really Leave?" Here is a snippet:

Suppose you apply for a job 15 years from now. The employer uses a new product that matches the information on a candidateâ€™s resume with information in online archives dating back to the late 1990s. Automated data significance analytic modules pluck out the bits of data that match characteristics the employer has specified for screening candidates.

Unfortunately, when you were 17, you and your friends took a 100 mile-per-hour joyride, with you in the driverâ€™s seat. Nothing bad happened, no one was hurt, there was no ticket. You werenâ€™t even drunk. Your friend joked about it in a comment he posted on your MySpace site. You commented back.

Now in 2021, the person youâ€™d like to work for is reading those comments and asks the computer for more information. It shows you werenâ€™t always the most sensible person and found risky behaviour exciting. "Letâ€™s look at the next candidate" the manager decides.

Is this scenario far-fetched? No, itâ€™s even possible today, in 2006, though the cost is high...