I am so grateful that I got the chance to listen and engage with Jesse’s presentation today. I’ve started to become more aware about my personal social media accounts because I’m beginning to work in school environments. I feel like social media as a teacher and social media in the classroom is a very grey area. This is mostly because teachers, parents, and social media professionals are all going to have their own differing opinions. I know that I have the responsibility as a teacher to make my own decisions, but I appreciate the guidance and advice that Jesse provided our class with. I personally think it’s better to keep my social media life separate from student and parent contacts. As it is common for parents to do some digging about their students teachers prior to meeting, I think it is better to avoid having public social media accounts. In the chance that parents disagreed with a post I posted for whatever reason, I’d rather prevent those potential issues ahead of time.

I found it helpful to hear specific examples about when teachers should get involved with students personal lives over social media. If you happen to find something online about a student that puts their safety or well-being at risk, it is your responsibility to get involved. However, there are positive and negative ways about dealing with these situations. It is important to think critically before making a decision about how to handle sensitive situations involving students online, the priority has to be to protect the student. Some circumstances are better to talk to the student, whereas others are better to bring up to the principal.

This presentation gave me a lot of clarification and support with navigating social medias connection to teaching. I still have more to learn, but now I have access to some trustworthy and beneficial resources to support me.