Huffington Post: Missouri Facebook law draws criticism and praise

Today's Huffington Post has an article on Missouri's Facebook law:

This concept of teacher immediacy (approachability, availability and warmth) has been widely studied," Cheri Simonds, a professor of Communications at Illinois State University who has written a textbook on how teachers can effectively communicate with students, said in an email. "Facebook is an avenue for establishing immediacy with students on their level."

According to Simonds, instant access in an educational context has been shown to improve student motivation and cognitive learning. Though her Facebook research has focused on college students, Simonds said that when used properly, the educational benefits of social media are applicable across age groups.

Simonds said she fears that the Missouri law and ones like it will lead to teachers erring on the side of caution and communicating less with students, resulting in weaker relationships. Tony Rothert, the legal director for the ACLU of Eastern Missouri, echoed that sentiment.

“I think that reasonable teachers are going to be afraid to use Facebook or Twitter at all, or anything that allows for requiring mutual consent before you can see what's posted,” Rothert said. He added that the bill "silences a lot more speech than would be necessary to attack the problem."

Others worry that administrators aren't being realistic about what it will take to implement the law and aren't taking into account the potential benefits of incorporating social networking into the classroom.

"The number one technology that students use outside school is social networking sites," said Christine Greenhow, an assistant professor at the College of Education and the College of Information Studies at the University of Maryland. "This is the technology they're going to as their one-stop shop for communication. It's their email, their bulletin board, their online photo album, it's where they do their writing."

For that reason, Greenhow, whose area of expertise is learning in social media contexts, argued that limiting communication between teachers and students only furthers the gap between a student's in-school life and his or her life outside of school.

"We know the best learning happens when teachers are able to integrate students' career interests, passions and the skills that they develop outside of school into the curriculum, and when students are able to take what they're learning in school and build on it outside of school," Greenhow said.

"It seems to assume the worst about teachers, that teachers are sexual predators," he added.