Inappropriate Use of Digital Media

One of the first years I used Ning in my classroom, a social networking site, I had a students create a Ning website called the UnBruns(it was free at that time).  It wasn't really bad or anything, and I kind of got a chuckle out of it, but I did have a talk with the student asking him to take it down as it is disrespectful, which he then did.

This is something that can happen quite easily on Twitter where students create fake teacher or principal accounts and post tweets acting like they are that person.

Oh my goodness, Chad.  I never thought about that - students creating a fake teacher account on Twitter then posting as the teacher.  Now that scares me, but it can happen.  There are a lot of fake Twitter accounts out there.  For example, the Fake Bo Pelini account or the Fake Fred Hoiberg account that are all in good fun, but at times, this kind of fun can lead to something inappropriate.

That is what makes teaching appropriate use difficult.  As teachers, where do we draw the line between appropriate and inappropriate? There are times when a student does something inappropriate but truly doesn't realize that it was inappropriate.  There really is a gray area.

So true Tanya.   Students don't know what is appropriate and what isn't.  They don't understand how others can perceive things they do that they intended to be a joke as "NOT A JOKE".