Help! My students are hooked on Facebook!

[Andrew van Zyl]

Greetings from a wintry Pretoria, South Africa! I hope you folk are all enjoying your Northern Hemisphere weather!

My question is one which I am sure many of you are facing as well-what to do about Facebook? I have only been in this job as the school librarian for about eight months, but I know that if I walk into the library and there are five boys online, that at least four of them will be on Facebook. Is Facebook as popular in American schools as it is here? The point is that we are trying to encourage students to reserve the first part of the day-up to 15h00-for academic purposes. Our experience is that since Facebook is such an absorbing and social activity it not only keeps the Facebookee from his studies, but that it inevitably draws other students in as well and creates an environment which is very learner unfriendly!

We are therefore planning to block the site itself during the first part of the day…but of course this means very little if we cannot also block the various proxy servers which students use to override that ruling. My question: is there software out there which blocks proxy servers and which is also constantly updated? Or is there at least a list which is regularly updated which our IT wizards can use to block sites. Any ideas would be welcome!

[Lori Franklin]

Not sure about software for blocking...I know blocking at the "port" rather than blocking just the site address and various known other points of entry may be somewhat effective. It's also hugely popular at my school. The students usually quickly find ways to access it when it has been blocked.

Here's some advice that might seem contradictory: get your own Facebook account and get out there in FB land and see what is happening. I have all sorts of professional colleagues who are my "friends." I have also "friended" former students (those who have graduated and moved onto jobs, colleges, etc.). It's a social networking powerhouse that isn't going anywhere anytime soon. At least, you might familiarize yourself with the product enough to talk with students in a knowledgeable way. However, be aware that while some students will be amused that you actually have a FB page, others will be annoyed that you are entering their zone of coolness! :)

Does your school have a technology agreement that students have to sign before being allowed to use school computers? If using social networking sites is blocked, then you at least have the beginning block in place - students who have signed the agreement have essentially stated that they understand the rules and agree to the consequences (whatever they may be).

Good luck...

Lori

[Rachma]

Dear Andrew,
I hope my reply is not too late. The same thing happens in my school. Only it is Friendster in my case. I know it is not wise to ban or block access to this site completely. So we made limitation for students to access this site. Students can access this site on Saturday only. But without any specific agreement, they tend to breaks this rule. They accessed the site when we were busy to watch over them. To overcome this, starting this year we made an agreement on library and computer use signed by each student. In this agreement, all rules and consequences are clearly stated. After signing this, students were given a library card that has to be shown when they come to use the computers/internet in the library.
Of course some students still try to violate the rules, but not many, and usually once caught they take the consequences without any hassle.
In one of the computer, we also install Net nanny, internet filter software, which blocked the site. It's quite effective but we only could only afford to buy 1 license.

Just my two cents worth....

Rachma
Al Kausar Boarding School Library
Indonesia

[Courtney Lewis]

Andrew, I'd love to know more. Are you saying that students are using Facebook during classtime? Are they high school students?

At my high school, if a student has a free bell, their time is their own so Facebook is not a problem for us. We have a lot of faculty members on Facebook and many of our student groups have Facebook pages so they are still engaged in school activities on there. I guess we've taken the "embracing" idea rather than banning the site. Streaming video would be blocked during the day for bandwidth purposes, but other than that, we're okay with this.

[Nancy Bosch]

I am not one who likes to have sites blocked but I think these social networking sites are the exception. In our district MySpace, Facebook, YouTue, etc are blocked. I'm sure kids can cuircumvent the blocks, but then they are going against the district's AUP. I've read of untoward things (bullying, posting harassing comments and photos, etc.) happening on these sites during school hours and the schools being found liable. I teach elementary gifted kids but I don't let them do things in my class they can do at home. I'd hate for parents to think I'm not minding the store, we've got a lot of work to do in class!!