I personally LOVE social media. I check my Facebook and Instagram all the time, I mean ALL the time. I even have a Facebook page for my Drama Club students. So you would think I would be all about using social media for my classroom. In some ways I am, but in a lot of ways I'm not.
First, my Facebook is for me, the not-at-work me. I want to have seperation between my job and my home-life, as much as possible. I already find it hard, since I live five minutes from my school and live in the community where I work. I always feel like I'm in teacher mode when I am out and about. I don't mind having the Drama Club Facebook page, since it isn't a class and there is so much community involvement. However, I make it a policy to not "friend" students until they graduate. This is also for them. I don't want to know every little detail about their personal lives, and I want there to be no confusion over whether I'm their friend or their teacher.
I have used a program designed to look like Facebook in my classroom, though. It is called Edmodo. It looks A LOT like Facebook, and anyone who can work Facebook can work this website. It allows for some of the same type of interaction, but has a much more academic feel. I can control who sees my page and there are no ads. Plus neither my students nor I choose to express our personal feelings (like normal status updates) through Edmodo. It is more like an extension of the classroom, not an invitation into my private world.
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