Social Networking Sites

Education on Social Networking Sites

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My Teachers are on My Facebook List! Tan Han Quan Singapore Management University

Academic Writing Core 006, G16 Ms Low Lih Jeng 13 November 2009

Education on Social Networking Sites

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I added one of my teachers from my junior college to my friends’ list in Facebook recently. Looking through his profile and wall page, I realized most of my ex-classmates had also added him as a friend in Facebook. What surprised me was that most of his current students were also in his friend’s list. On his wall page, his current students were chatting with him, commenting on his recently posted photo on his trip to Australia. None of the topics were academic related. I was wondering whether is it advisable for the students to have their teachers added to their friend’s list and vice versa. This is because the teachers will be able to observe whatever the student did and posted on the social networking site since the restriction was remove. What if the student posted pictures of him doing some activities that had broke the rules and regulation of the school and was spotted by the teacher on the social networking sites? The consequences might not be the same if he did not have his teacher as a friend on the social networking site. Privacy of students will start to surface when teachers and students interact with each other on social networking sites. Despite of this, there is still an increasing trend of school adopting social networking sites as platforms for academic learning. As Hoare (2007) mentions, the education system is heading to a direction of using social networking sites to “deliver academic contents” (para. 2). However, whether social networking sites are indeed beneficial for the education system is still a question. Thus, social networking sites should not replace traditional forms of education as platforms for academic learning. The reason why social...