Teachers use of social networking sites

Following @twowhizzy's tweet last Saturday with a link to an article from Australia regarding legislation being considered to curtail and or dissuade teachers from using social networking sites, I must admit I have been waiting the opportunity to blog post about the issue.I am sure that I am not alone when I say that teachers should not be using these sites to interact with pupils - these are social not school networking sites and for me it is a big NO to blur the two.There are many reasons why this route is unwise no matter what age of pupils we are talking about. There is the vast difficulty of breaching the pupil/teacher relationship

'More than 30 Queensland teachers have had their registration cancelled for unprofessional relationships with pupils over the past three years.

Eight cases involving inappropriate behaviour of a teacher contacting students via electronic equipment were heard by the Queensland College of Teachers' disciplinary committee last financial year. '

Hey even my own kids refused to be my 'friend' on Facebook for ages, and I can't say I blame them, it's just not cool. If we as teachers rightly want to use the advantages of web 2.0 technology with pupils then we should use tools which look similar and do the similar things but are not-Facebook or Bebo such as a protected invite only Ning or Edmodo installations or of course the trusty wiki ( wikispaces, wetpaint and many more...). So please, please do not think that those of us who propose the use of web 2.0 tools in the classroom condone this activity - I for one do not neither do many others I am sure.

Apologies for the quality of this post it is being typed on the small G1 keypad following a long 8am to 7pm day in work and I couldn't bring myself to fire up a pc or a laptop!