This post comes to you courtesy of Crystal Hess, teacher at Tahoma High School. It was originally posted on her blog Maybecrystal and is reproduced her with her permission. Thanks, Crystal!
Recently I added a Facebook fan box to our school web site that spotlights our district's Facebook page. The box shows 4 members at random inside the box. Someone at the district level pointed out that by clicking on one of the featured members you are taken to that person's profile page and teachers might not appreciate being found so easily... so we should take down the box. I counterpointed by saying this is a teaching point for people using Facebook (or other social networking sites) and we should be informing teachers that this is happening and how to prevent it instead of "protecting" the teachers by removing the box.
So here's my attempt at explaining some privacy issues and some ways that you should protect yourself.
Be aware of the privacy policies of sites you are using.
On Facebook specifically, here are a few things I hope you're aware of and utilize.
A) Check your privacy settings and set most of your information to "only friends." Did you realize that if your information is set to "everyone" that when you "fan"/"like" a page then the administrator of that group can add a fan box (as I described above) to a web site and your profile can be featured and clicked on and your information will be public for all to see?
B) Learn how to utilize friend lists to give different groups of people different access rights to your information. For example, my students are all on their own "students" list and I block personal information such as web site, phone number, and address from them.
C) Decide if you want to be publicly searchable by search engines. I don't, but I do allow people to search for me within Facebook so that they can add me as a friend.
Did you know that the Library of Congress is archiving public tweets?
Take a look at your Twitter settings too. I let people search for me by my e-mail address so they can request to follow me, but I don't keep my tweets public or add location to them. (I'm actually much more selective about who I follow/allow to follow me on Twitter than I am with Facebook--in general only people in Seattle or family I connect to via Twitter.)
I show my students this ACLU Pizza Palace video in class and we discuss privacy issues and how to check these settings. I suggest you check your own settings and maybe even Google yourself and see what you discover.
Technology is awesome, but make sure you're protecting your privacy.
If you're in my school district and would like some coaching on protecting your privacy I'd be glad to set up a one-on-one with you sometime in June or over the summer to help you out.
Note: Another learning opportunity about this important issue is the 10Tech Summer Conference. Rob Morrow, Jr., teacher at Tahoma High School, will be teaching a class on managing your digital privacy during session 4D on Wednesday, June 23.
Recently I added a Facebook fan box to our school web site that spotlights our district's Facebook page. The box shows 4 members at random inside the box. Someone at the district level pointed out that by clicking on one of the featured members you are taken to that person's profile page and teachers might not appreciate being found so easily... so we should take down the box. I counterpointed by saying this is a teaching point for people using Facebook (or other social networking sites) and we should be informing teachers that this is happening and how to prevent it instead of "protecting" the teachers by removing the box.
So here's my attempt at explaining some privacy issues and some ways that you should protect yourself.
Be aware of the privacy policies of sites you are using.
On Facebook specifically, here are a few things I hope you're aware of and utilize.
A) Check your privacy settings and set most of your information to "only friends." Did you realize that if your information is set to "everyone" that when you "fan"/"like" a page then the administrator of that group can add a fan box (as I described above) to a web site and your profile can be featured and clicked on and your information will be public for all to see?
B) Learn how to utilize friend lists to give different groups of people different access rights to your information. For example, my students are all on their own "students" list and I block personal information such as web site, phone number, and address from them.
C) Decide if you want to be publicly searchable by search engines. I don't, but I do allow people to search for me within Facebook so that they can add me as a friend.
Take a look at your Twitter settings too. I let people search for me by my e-mail address so they can request to follow me, but I don't keep my tweets public or add location to them. (I'm actually much more selective about who I follow/allow to follow me on Twitter than I am with Facebook--in general only people in Seattle or family I connect to via Twitter.)
I show my students this ACLU Pizza Palace video in class and we discuss privacy issues and how to check these settings. I suggest you check your own settings and maybe even Google yourself and see what you discover.
Technology is awesome, but make sure you're protecting your privacy.
If you're in my school district and would like some coaching on protecting your privacy I'd be glad to set up a one-on-one with you sometime in June or over the summer to help you out.
Note: Another learning opportunity about this important issue is the 10Tech Summer Conference. Rob Morrow, Jr., teacher at Tahoma High School, will be teaching a class on managing your digital privacy during session 4D on Wednesday, June 23.
