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NYC Teachers Forbidden To "Friend" Students
betterunixthanunix writes "The New York City Department of Education has issued rules covering student-teacher interactions on social networking websites. Following numerous inappropriate relationships between students and teachers that began on social networking sites, the rules prohibit teachers from communicating with students using their 'personal' accounts, and requires parental consent before students can participate in social networking for educational purposes. The rules also state that teachers have no expectation of privacy online, and that principals and other officials will inspect teachers' profiles. Oddly, the rules do not address communication involving cell phones, which the Department of Education's own investigations have shown to be even more problematic."
Freedom of association? Does that apply? Why do educators seem to love tossing out personal rights and freedoms? Between this, video cameras on laptops, insisting on viewing personal accounts, etc, it's just disheartening. Why not RFID tag them all or lock them in cells on their personal time?
They would be violations of school policy, not misdemeanors / felonies.
Well, that depends a lot on what they mean by "principals and other officials will inspect teachers' profiles."
If they just look at the profile, fine, whatever.
If they log in AS the profile, there's a problem: everyone on that teacher's friend list who has a non-public profile is now visible, and accessing their friends-only profile info under that circumstance is, potentially, a federal crime.
Does Khan Academy http://www.khanacademy.org/ count as a "social network" according to the New York City Department of Education?
-- Terry