teachers advised NOT to have Facebook ( or similar) accounts

[NoahFence]

we were told today
what do you think..

That is an issue beep beep I never out pictures of pupis or any other children up. Unless they are a friend's child and I have permission.

I do a lot of residentials with school and take photos, I may put pictures up of myself or colleagues but never pupils.

I work in a school; no longer a teacher though. I also have FB, but have set all privacy settings and made it so I am not searchable. Did it because of working in a prison previously though, rather than because of the school work.

I am not non searchable, altough the kids at school say I am a nightmare to find But even of people search for you if your profile is private all they can find is a picture, no?

I have given my sister a long talk about facebook as she is just starting her teacing career and has albums full of simulated sex, girls snogging, pissed on the town, fake boob grabbing action.

I am the old dull one.

A few of my teaching colleagues see FB as a bit of a popularity thing, sadly.

I have a Facebook account so I can see photos of my friends and their children. All anyone can see of me is a very bad shot of me half in the dark. I don't accept any current colleagues or students as friends. You have to have known me for years and years.

By googling me however you can get a photo of me at a marketing conference when I didn't teach with a very large glass of wine.

A friend of mine is a teacher
A pupil at her school set up a fake FB account in one of is teachers names. he then requested to be friends with other teachers there.
Thinking it genuine they accepted and hey presto pupil had access to all the teachers FB accounts.
Very scary.
I also know a Police offficer who was giving evidence in court, the defence solicitor brought up the fact that this officer was on FB and asked him about being a member of the ' hard sex against a wall' group. Very embarrassing.

DW is a teacher and doesn't accept friend requests from pupils. She had some former ones on there but I think has deleted them now.

My privacy is such that only my friends can see my comments on mine and others' pages. I can only be searched for by friends of friends and don't have my photo visible for anyone looking either. Will have to sign out and test it.

It would be in the NoRealNewsDM funky chicken

I think people worry too much. I mean with regards to teachers and photos etc. I am friends with some of my old teachers - ones that I was closer to at school. I enjoy being able to communicate with them when I wouldn't be able to without fcbk. And all the school photos of me as a kid on the net have been put up by other pupils in my class - I remember finding one of me in primary school the other day and enjoying looking at how everyone looked back then. I think past students all realise that teachers are people just like everyone else. However I would be concerned that current pupils might respect me less if I was a teacher and they saw dodgy photos of me on a night out. I guess it's up to each teacher to decide what they are comfortable with.

Nightmare all this isn;t it.

Personally, and I take child protection and self protection VERY seriously, I see no reason to not have a facebook account. It is easy to play it as safe as possible and set all prvacy settings to only being accesible to friends.

I only accept a few former pupils as friends but definietly have collegues. Former pupils have only limited profile so really it is for 'how they're getting on' messages rather than looking at profile. They are post 6th form too so are 18.

Surely facebook is for teachers how life has always been? My teachers used to get looked up in the phone book and stalked in Tescos...

I;m getting very sick of people telling teachers what they can and can't have. I understand the caution, and I am a great believer in self protection and child protection. But I am a real person too and my 6th formers are well aware of that.

I wouldn't put any drunken pictures of me upo there for anybody to see!!! All my stuff on their is PG any way.

Many of my fB friends are teachers I had a long time ago...
I love it. They are the type who are sensible enough not to do anything stupid anyway.

I have my sons former primary teache ron their hes now year 8, but then he went extra mile for my ds when was teaching him and had become a family friend,case of ds loosing his beloved grandad, having to wear a infusion pupm to controll his asthm , finding out that his real dad who thank feck has no contact with was arrested and charged and found guilty of rape.Lot for a 10/11 year oldto cope wth,

but we did agree that there was 2 sides to it him s a teacher and ds never called him anything other than that in school and then the man outside of school and yes lol thats including seeing lot of the teachers slightly squiffy at xmas party

,

oh and ds does not have him on fb i do but also dont have ds or any children on mine

It seems like basic common sense for anyone to:

• not have pictures of themselves drunk / in electric blue underwear on their profile
• in this day and age, assume any picture taken on a digital camera may end up on facebook
• check out their privacy settings - they're there and fairly strightforward, and if they're stringent enough, you can't even be found on a search
• have the guts to ignore friend requests they're uncomfortable with
• not join groups which would embarass them if colleagues knew about them.

Simples

Well said Longtalljosie

Message withdrawn

All this stuff about Facebook accounts does rather assume people have an Attack Of The Stupid when using the Internet.

two teachers I know (Both Primary) don't have facebooks at all. because they don't want to be compromised. Another of my friends has one and has posted a few inappropriate things which I have questioned because I was worried her head teacher might read them. She is more careful now, specially as old pupils who she taught when they were 8 and 9 have started contacting her (they are now in their twenties) and asking to be her 'friend'!

That is one end of the spectrum UD. The other is that your details can be found out through a third party, despite your own privacy settings and people can make things difficult for you. How they would do it? Well, they will find ways you can't think of.

I have been burned once this way with my phone no by students. I have an unlisted no. but a student got my phone no through a 3rd party (relative of mine). One night I got at least 10 abusive calls in one hour (the night after I had amnio btw). Luckily, I recorded of 7 calls and handed it over to the police. 2 of the 3 Teens who phoned me had never even met me in my life. they must have thought 'oh, teacher? let's have a laugh.'

For anyone with teens it could become far more important in the future, if they post inappropriate content.

On a R4 programme about privacy, someone from a widely used search engine service said that while his firm has no really easy way to find a photo of a particular person, it is superb at not just allowing searches, but of archiving material (hint Google is involved with www.archive.org which runs the "Wayback Machine", so you can view websites from 2005,4,3,2,1 and earlier, in many cases)

His advice for his teens was to put as little as possible online about themselves, if there was the slightest chance it could portray them directly or indirectly in a bad light (not just the drunken party while underage, but being in a bunch of friends where several take drugs / steal cars / etc).

It's becoming routine for universities and employers to search for background info and that can prevent getting even an interview.

Now, quite agree a teacher in her sexy lingerie (where, where? ) is just being daft, but putting any 'dubious' pix online means that those who are 'friends' today can take copies, and can post them elsewhere anonymously (or masquerading), thus making public that which one (wrongly) thought of as being 'restricted to friends'. Then it may be archived and be visible/findable for years, perhaps blighting a career.

Simple example, but allowing any 'access' means any 'privacy' should be forgotten (sorry if that sounds too negative).

Remember the e-mail that went from gf to bf (about their night in bed), was then shared with his friends, and then went on to thousands.

I think a half dozen or more lost their jobs over that (daft to ever use a 'work' mail address for anything in your private life, and no excuse for doing any of it on work network, it's bound to be covered by company policies and archiving of all "correspondence" may be automated to ensure a "paper trail" for contract / compliance reasons.

It's an area I am concerned about for my nephews and niece, given them being under 30 and with a number of friends from work/study, whose friend-of-a-friend ... links must wrap around the UK/ Europe/ World and among those people could be all sorts who snort coke, commit fraud, etc. They're not all in the UK, and when studying, had friends from as far away as Japan.

IOnlyReadtheDailyMailinCafes - not "old" or "dull" but looking out for her prospects of course! Well done.

Would not cross her mind that it could be a problem, unless someone explained why she didn't get place on course etc. Odds of that ? Low, I think.

Teachers at our DD's Secondary School have Facebook accounts and have accepted friends requests from pupils.

Funnily enough, these are the very same pupils who get the best parts in the school play, most favourable treatments etc (or at least this is how it often seems)

It does make them (the teachers) potentially vulnerable to accusations so I think they should be banned

We were told that all staff (not just teachers) should not accept students as friends unless they were related. There have been accusations from students and suspicious/crazy/broke parents against staff regarding 'inapproriate relationships' and 'abuse of trust' which were difficult to refute once it was discovered that the member of staff had FB/bebo/hi five links to the students or had the students numbers stored on thier personal mobiles.

I had a student who kept trying to contact me on facebook or talk to me offsite about 'personal issues' and I told him off. He later accused a teacher (who's his facebook friend) of assault and harrasment and she's being investigated by social services. It's not a nice place to be.
We've had some students calling and PMing tteachers in the middle of the night threatening to kill themselves as well and they end up a nervous wreak along with thier families. 122 child protection issues investigated last academic year relating to the college.