Territorial pissings
I delivered my final lecture of the year on Wednesday, which I thought went pretty well. Lots of good information was delivered, fun was had and there was lots of clapping (but not for me so much). At this lecture I made a suggestion to the 250 or so students present (and one that I thought was pretty good at first) that they could ask me questions through any of my profiles on Facebook, Bebo, and MySpace if they wanted to.One of the key reasons (for what I thought was a sensible suggestion) is the total inadequacy of Blackboard (a closed, institutional course management system) to facilitate online conversations, of any kind.
Now, I thought I was doing a good thing, you know suggesting a communication medium that lots of students use all the time, even during classes. So when confronted with the deafening silence as the response, it quickly became apparent that I may have crossed a line.
So what is this line?
Well it seems pretty obvious really. I am their teacher and representative of the University and not their friend (which doesn’t mean I’m not friendly with them). My suggestion, despite the good intentions, tried to combine the private, social lives of students reserved for their actual friends on sites like Bebo and Facebook with what is effectively their work life (while at University anyway).
I had inadvertently tread into their personal, leisure space used to get away from what I represent (fair or not) - work, authority, effort, conformity, no-fun, seriousness, etc. So the class reaction was perfectly sensible when viewed like this, particularly when many of the interactions on these sites are existing conversations that have spilled over from the real-world = ambient intimacy.
This morning I thought of a real-world analogy useful for illustrating the problem. It goes like this: Imagine a creepy maths teacher (70’s fashion wear and comb-over) from your high school sitting amongst you and your friends while you happily discuss people you want to hook up with, gossip, plan events, laugh, joke, share photographs and experiences etc.
Oooh!
The saddest thing about the analogy is that in my case, I am effectively the creepy maths teacher and who wants that?
Update: It appears that some students have had a change of heart and actively engaging me at Facebook and Bebo. As a response, I have setup a group on each site to try to refocus the interactions.
