Mentor - Student Interactions Online

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Interesting twist now that many schools require students to have Facebook accounts and use such for posting school work, coordinating team research and generating homework assignments.
For WildStang, we maintain our own forum but have private sections for the subteams where mentors and students can interact in 'public'. i.e. the forums that are closed to non-WildStang members are open to all adults, parents, and teachers. Private interactions ( face to face or electronically) between student and adult are not allowed.

[JamesCH95]

I unfreinded all of the students I had friended on Facebook after learning that at least one of our sponsoring school's policy forbids teachers and staff being facebook friends with students. I feel that, for better or worse, I should respect the policy of any schools that are involved with our team.

[Taylor]

I have a personal policy of not being 'friends' with any current 1529 students. However, I would not be against a FRC1529 page, moderated by team leaders, that students and others could use. That could allow access between adults and students without having 'friend' status. I've seen several teams use this ability well.

[Peter Matteson]

Originally Posted by Taylor

I have a personal policy of not being 'friends' with any current 1529 students. However, I would not be against a FRC1529 page, moderated by team leaders, that students and others could use. That could allow access between adults and students without having 'friend' status. I've seen several teams use this ability well.

I have the same policy. I will not "friend" students until they graduate.

We do have team pages and alumni pages all of us can see but as mentioned those are public so there is not concern about it.

Also when it comes to e-mails we generally have 3 lists we use when sending stuff: All team members, Mentors and student leaders, Mentors only.

[JamesCH95]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Luckily, I'm not a teacher.

Without Facebook, our team would NOT be able to do iterative design. We don't use Facebook to talk about our private lives, we use it for work. There's a difference. Not all technology is evil.

Let me explain further. It is simply against policy at some of the schools that we're involved with for students and school employees to have social media interactions with students. I do not want my team, or its students/coaches, to put a high school in a difficult position. I don't think it would take long for funding to get cut, or students to be barred from participating in robotics, if we were found to be in violation of school policy. Actually, to the best of my knowledge, it is NH state policy that forbids this.

The state and the school districts have their own reasons for this policy, however paranoid they may be. I do not friend students because I will not permit something as trivial as Facebook or social media interactions to jeopardize our team because of the school's policy. I may not like the policy, I may not agree with the policy, but I'm not going to thumb my nose at the school because I'm not a teacher and my status as 'volunteer' might let me slip through some loophole in the policy.

Email groups, particularly google groups where you can share google docs and calendars are very effective for design collaboration and general team communications. I used google groups for many design projects in college and it is what we currently use for our team while our web team sets up SVN on our web server.

[Jon Stratis]

It seems to me that electronic interactions between students and mentors (like e-mail and facebook) can be beneficial to students in ways other than working on the robot. Most students graduate high school (and some even college) without really knowing how to communicate effectively and appropriately in a work environment. Having the experience of communicating with their mentors can help them develop these skills! further, it can help them to see what information, pictures, and such are appropriate (from a professional perspective) to have on Facebook - especially since prospective employers tend to look at these things. Keeping in touch with former students can also be great for both parties - you can help them get a job or internship, and you'll get an employee you know and can work with easily.

[Andrew Schreiber]

Originally Posted by Peter Matteson

I have the same policy. I will not "friend" students until they graduate.

We do have team pages and alumni pages all of us can see but as mentioned those are public so there is not concern about it.

Also when it comes to e-mails we generally have 3 lists we use when sending stuff: All team members, Mentors and student leaders, Mentors only.

I will not seek out students* as friends on FB. I will also not deny the request for 90% of students. I put them on a list called 'FRC High School Students' where they are able to only see what I choose for them to see. It also avoids the issue of having to determine if a person requesting is a current HS student on a team I don't know. I used to go through the whole process of trying to find whether they were a student or what. It also avoids the awkward conversation of "why didn't you accept my friend request?" wherein I end up having to explain why (because somehow there is a huge difference between me at 18 and them at 17 a couple years ago).




* The exception to this is students in EWCP like Nick Lawrence.

[pfreivald]

I would like to be clear that in order to be my friend on Facebook, you must *both* have a high school diploma *and* have survived your 18th birthday, *or* be at least twenty-one years old. No current students, period!

Our FBing is done via a group, not private friending.

[MechEng83]

Thanks, everyone for your replies. It seems there's not a real concensus, even within the FIRST community about what rules should exist.

I asked our school's administrator and there isn't currently a specific policy about online interactions. He suggested we follow our general policy on mentor-student interactions, since that's worked for us so far.

I'm really glad we're not placed under an overly restrictive policy. I've used Facebook and text messages to remind students of upcoming events. I sometimes chat with specific students about what they specifically need to do to fulfill their team role. Really I don't see how this differs from sending an email (which most of our students don't check regularly) making a phone call (which most students don't answer) or having an in-person conversation (which is difficult if the student doesn't show up on a particular day) except that I'm able to reach them effectively.

I don't actively seek out current students as facebook friends, but I haven't denied a request either. I do set students to a restricted group to limit their access to my information. I view facebook and other social media as tools. The ability to use tools is what makes us an advanced society. FIRST is about promoting technology and inspiring students. If I can use this technology to inspire students, then I think it's a wholly appropriate and legitimate use.

[ebarker]

Originally Posted by MechEng83

I don't actively seek out current students as facebook friends, but I haven't denied a request either. I do set students to a restricted group to limit their access to my information. I view facebook and other social media as tools. The ability to use tools is what makes us an advanced society. FIRST is about promoting technology and inspiring students. If I can use this technology to inspire students, then I think it's a wholly appropriate and legitimate use.

Prior to email/facebook/phone/text contact I have a conversation with the student's parents. Once all that is settled then things can proceed. Until then the students only recourse is to be all meetings.

[Phyrxes]

Another thing you may wish to consider is drafting and adopting an "acceptable use policy." Out students agree to the county's policy as part of the school districts code of behavior so ours expands on that policy instead of writing one completely from scratch.

The policy is then included in the packet of information that each parent receives when their child joins.

[Chris is me]

Originally Posted by JamesCH95

I unfreinded all of the students I had friended on Facebook after learning that at least one of our sponsoring school's policy forbids teachers and staff being facebook friends with students. I feel that, for better or worse, I should respect the policy of any schools that are involved with our team.

Luckily, I'm not a teacher.

Without Facebook, our team would NOT be able to do iterative design. We don't use Facebook to talk about our private lives, we use it for work. There's a difference. Not all technology is evil.

[pfreivald]

Well, Facebook is evil, but regardless, 1551 has a FB page that we use to communicate with parents and students. All communication is public and documented.

I don't allow students to call my cell phone, but they can text me -- this keeps a record of all student contact, and if anything inappropriate gets sent to me I can immediately report it to parents, admins, etc.

...not that this has ever happened, because my kids know that it would if they did, so they don't.

[JamesBrown]

Originally Posted by Chris is me

Luckily, I'm not a teacher.

Without Facebook, our team would NOT be able to do iterative design. We don't use Facebook to talk about our private lives, we use it for work. There's a difference. Not all technology is evil.

Do you find it necessary to friend the students to get this done? Could the same be achieved through a facebook group?

[thefro526]

Originally Posted by JamesBrown

Do you find it necessary to friend the students to get this done? Could the same be achieved through a facebook group?

Considering that Picone and I chat a few times a week, it's much easier to share information and get feedback if you're friends with one another. We also have an EWCP Facebook group that we use for collaboration, but it can get a bit cluttered when you're looking for a response from specific person.

Is it necessary to friend someone? Probably not, though it does make communicating a bit easier.

Also, on the subject of Facebook, depending on how savvy you are with the privacy settings you can make things as public or private as you want. If you were to create a group in your friends list called 'robotics students', 'work friends', 'family', etc you can target and block specific information with a few extra clicks.