TITLE: Social Networks and the Changing Relationship Between Students and Faculty
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: October 15, 2008  7:52 AM
DESC: 
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BODY:
One of my most senior colleagues has recently become
enamored of Facebook.  One of his college buddies
started using it to share pictures, so my colleague
created an account.  Within minutes, he had a friend
request -- from a student in one of his classes.
And they kept coming...  He now has dozen of friends,
mostly undergrads at our school but also a few former
students and current colleagues.

Earlier this week, he stopped me in the hall to report
that during his class the previous hour, a student in
the class had posted a message on his own Facebook
page saying something to the effect, "I can't keep my
eyes open.  I have to go to sleep!"  How does the prof
know?  Because they are Facebook friends, of course.

Did the student think twice about posting such a
message during class?  I doubt it.  Was he so blinded
by fatigue or boredom that he forgot the prof is his
friend and so would see the message?  I doubt it.  Is
he at all concerned in retrospect, or even just a
little sheepish?  I doubt it.  This is standard
operating procedure for a college set that opens the
blinds on it life, day by day and moment by moment.

We live in a new world.  Our students live much more
public lives than most of us did, and today's network
technology knocks down the well that separates Them
from Us.

This can be a good thing.  My colleague keeps his
Facebook page open in the evenings, where his
students can engage him in chat about course material
and assignments.  He figures that his office hours
are now limited only by the time he spends in front
of a monitor.  Immediate interaction can make a huge
difference to a student who is struggling with a
database problem or a C syntax error.  The prof does
not mind this as an encroachment on his time or
freedom; he can close the browser window and draw
the blinds on office hours anytime he wants, and
besides, he's hacking or reading on-line most of the
time anyway!

I'm uncertain what the potential downsides of this
new openness might be.  There's always a risk that
students can become too close to their professors,
so a prof needs to take care to maintain some
semblance of a professional connection.  But the
demystification of professors is probably a good
thing, done right, because it enables connections
and creates an environment more conducive to learning.
I suppose one downside might be that students develop
a sense of entitlement to Anytime, Anywhere access,
and professors who can't or don't provide could be
viewed negatively.  This could poison the learning
environment on both sides of the window.  But it's
also not a new potential problem.  Just ask students
about the instructors who are never in their offices
for face-to-face meetings or who never answer e-mail.

I've not had experience with this transformation due
to Facebook.  I do have a page, created originally for
much the same reason as my colleague's.  I do have a
small number of friends, including undergrads, former
students, current colleagues, a grade-school buddy,
and even my 60+ aunt.  But I use Facebook sparingly,
usually for a specific task, and rarely have my page
open.  I don't track the comments on my "wall", and
I don't generally post on others'.  It has been
useful in one particular case, though, reconnecting
me with a former student
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2004-12.html#e2004-12-30T08_06_20.htm">
   whose work I have mentioned</A>
here.  That has been a real pleasure.  (FYI, the link
to his old site seems to be broken now.)

However, I do have limited experience with the newly
transparent wall between me and my students, through
blogs.  It started when a few students -- not many
-- found my blog and began to read it.  Then I found
the blogs of a few recent students and, increasingly,
current students.  I don't have a lot of time to read
any blogs these days, but when I do read, I read some
of theirs.  Blogs are not quite as immediate as the
Twitter-like chatter to be found in Facebook, but they
are a surprisingly candid look into my students' lives
and minds.  Struggles they have with a particular
class or instructor; personal trials at home; illness
and financial woes -- all are common topics in the
student blogs I read.  So, too, are there joys and
excitement and breakthroughs.  Their posts enlighten
me and humble me.  Sometimes I feel as if I am privy
to far too much, but mostly I think that the personal
connection enriches my relationship both with individual
students and with the collective student body.  What
I read certainly can keep me on a better path as I
play the role of instructor or guide.

And, yes, I realize that there is a chance that the
system can be gamed.  Am I being played by a devious
student?  It's possible, but honestly, I don't think
it's a big issue.  The same students who will post in
full view of their instructor that they want to sleep
through class without shame or compunction are the
ones who are blogging.  There is a cultural ethic at
play, a code by which these students live.  I feel
confident in assuming that their posts are authentic,
absent evidence to the contrary for any given blogger.

(That said, I appreciate when students write entries
that praise a course or a professor.  Most students
current students are circumspect enough not to name
names, but there is always the possibility that they
refer to my course.  That hope can psyche me up some
days.)

To be fair, we have to admit that the same possibility
for gaming the system arises when professors blog.
I suppose that I can say anything here in an effort to
manipulate my students' perceptions or feelings.  I
might also post
<A HREF="http://www.cs.uni.edu/~wallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2007-01.html#e2007-01-23T08_09_03.htm">
   something like this</A>,
which reflects my take on a group of students, and risk
affecting my relationship with those students.  One of
my close friends sent me e-mail soon after that post
to raise just that concern.

For the same reasons I give the benefit of the doubt
to student bloggers, I give myself the benefit of the
doubt, and the same to the students who read this blog.
To be honest, writing even the few entries I manage to
write these days takes a lot of time and psychic energy.
I have too little of either resource to spend them
disingenuously.  There is a certain ethic to blogging,
and most of us who write do so for more important
purposes than trying to manipulate a few students'
perceptions.  Likewise, I trust the students who read
this blog to approach it with a mindset of understanding
something about computer science and just maybe to get
a little sense of what their Dear Old Professor tick.

I know that is the main reason I write -- to figure out
how I tick, and maybe learn a few useful nuggets of
wisdom along the way.  Knowing that I do so in a world
much more transparent than the one I inhabited as a CS
student years ago is part of the attraction.
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