Personal and Professional vs. Public and Private
During my time over in Australia, there was a lot of talk about the notion of having both a “personal” and “professional” identity on social media. The “personal” account would be one that is used with friends and family, where as the “professional” account would be one that is used with the work that you do in school. Although I understand the notion behind what is being said here, I don’t know if this is what I would really be focusing on when working with students or educators. We should really be focusing on the notion of “public and private” and how that works in our world.
This is not to say that you can’t have separate accounts. I, for one, choose not to and blur the lines between personal and professional all the time. For example, on my Facebook account, I have “friends” that are both people that I have grown up with as well as educators I learn from. On Twitter, I follow educators as well as celebrities. What I am always aware of is that no matter who sees what I put out there, anyone can see it eventually, whether if it is through me or someone else. I don’t “friend” students or their parents on Facebook, but I have no issue of them following me on Twitter, since that is totally open and anyone can see what is up there whether they have a Twitter account or not.
For example. let’s say a student wrote about how much they hated another student and started bullying them