Tag: inappropriate

Social Media – Revisited

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Before you begin reading this article, please take a moment and peruse these past blog posts:

Although several of the cited research links may have expired (for example, PA Department of Education modified most of their website’s URLs), these provided the foundations of background information and references for the presentation I prepared for the DCMEA Virtual Conference in 2020 (during COVID) and serve as the starting point for the workshop I will share in-person at the DCMEA Winter Conference in January 2026. This blog provides updates and additional perspectives. Taken in combination with the above sources, you will be able to identify the benefits, positive models, precautions, and dangers of social media, social networks, professional learning networks, and sample emerging technologies as they apply to teachers’ professional development and education of students.

“THE WHY”

Before every clinic or publication I develop, I always try to spotlight the theme of “THE WHY” as preached by one of my favorite authors and motivational speakers – Simon Sinek! According to him, for organizations and individuals alike, “THE WHY” (rationale and priority) is more important than “THE WHAT” and “THE HOW.” (See this video.)

WHY is a collaborative discussion on social media essential? Why now?

 ”There’s a growing body of evidence suggesting that educators are facing increasing scrutiny regarding their social media use. Concerns include unprofessional conduct, inappropriate interactions with students, and the potential for cyberbullying and other negative impacts on student well-being.”

“Educators are increasingly concerned about how social media influences students’ social-emotional development and their interactions with others.” 
— NEA Member Polling on Social Media…
— NEA Impact on Social Media and Personal Devices on Mental Health
— HHS Youth Mental Health and Social Media

Frankly, there is still a lot of confusion about the dangers of social media, social networking, and other technology integrations into education. In Social Media – Boon or Nemesis, we mentioned that teachers should “debunk the free speech myth.” We demonstrated how the improper application of social media could get educators in trouble. Check out these sites for more info and corroborative stats:
— Teacher Student Misconduct and the Critical Role of Social Media Screening
— NCBA Social Media for School Employees
— Social Media Hazards and Tips for Teachers

As always, our goal is to promote ethical practices in maintaining professionalism in the digital world.

“THE WHAT” — Review of Definitions

“Social Media”

Social media are “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.”
— Oxford Lexico.com online dictionary

“Social Network”

A social network is, 1. a network of social interactions and personal relationships.; 2. a dedicated website or other application which enables users to communicate with each other by posting information, comments, messages, images, etc.
— Oxford Lexico.com online dictionary

“Professional Learning Community” (PLC)

A PLC is “a group of educators who meet regularly…” (usually in-person) “…to strategically enhance their teaching skills and improve student outcomes.”

versus “Professional Learning Network” (PLN)

A PLN is “a group of educators who gather more informally…” (usually in online communications) “…to problem-solve and generate ideas to enhance classroom practices. A PLN… often takes the form of an open forum, where participants can ask and answer questions based on their experiences.”
— https://edtechmagazine.com/k12/article/2024/08/pln-vs-plc-perfcon

“THE HOW” — Ethos of Care

Teachers use social media to…

  • Get inspired with new teaching ideas
  • Find resources for the classroom
  • Connect with other educators
  • Stay on top of trends and news
  • participate in an online community
  • Find teacher discounts and deals
  • Follow education companies and organizations

— How Teachers Use Social Media
— Teachers Social Media Use

— Social Networks for Teachers

We acknowledge that the benefits of social networking for educators are numerous by promoting professional collaboration and connections, including:

  1. Acquiring information to enhance understanding
  2. Keeping informed about latest developments in education
  3. Enhancing communications with students, parents, and the school community
  4. Fostering connections with colleagues in the field to expand an educator’s professional network.

— Benefits of Social Media as an Educator

However, educators must exercise “sound judgment” and proper professional boundaries when using social media/networks with students. While the introduction of new technology provides many opportunities for teaching and learning, it is important to establish clear rules for appropriate student-teacher communication. In order to promote safety and appropriate boundaries while transitioning to a virtual teaching and learning environment, the Pennsylvania Professional Standards and Practices Commission offers suggestions to help educators protect themselves and their students.

  1. All technological resources and applications should be school entity-approved and only used in the manner prescribed. Ensure that you are familiar with the tools you are using in order to use them properly. 
  2. Communication with students should occur at designated times, consistent with traditional school day hours. Maintain transparency and protect yourself by keeping a record of all communications with students. 
  3. Clearly communicate when and how students should contact you and provide a timeframe for when students should expect responses to questions. 
  4. Avoid one-to-one interactions with students in chatrooms, FaceTime, Skype, or any other online space. School psychologists, school counselors and others providing one-to-one services to students should consult with school administration about the best mode of communication. 
  5. Use approved forms of communication by your school entity to connect with students and parents (i.e. Remind), use only your school email to communicate, and copy administration when communicating with parents or students. 
  6. When creating content or interacting in an online space with students, conduct yourself as you would if you were in school. If appearing on camera, dress professionally and be mindful of your surroundings and the camera’s view. 
  7. Do not “friend” or follow students on social media and do not allow students to “friend” or follow you on your personal social media. Remember, you do not have a “social” relationship with your students. 
  8. Keep your personal and professional lives separate. Do not share overly personal information about yourself with students.

— PSPC Digital Tips for Educators

While exercising responsibility to maintain a respectful, safe, online environment, there are many benefits for the application of social media for students in the classroom:

  • Real-time communications can increase student engagement, collaboration, communication and overall participation
  • Many students may find it easier to participate in online discussions that in the classroom
  • Students can easily ask each other or their teacher questions about assignments outside of class
  • Students & teachers can quickly share resources at any time.
  • Teachers can easily share class announcements.
  • Social media can provide a contingency plan for last minute remote learning scenarios.
  • Students can organize school events with each other or with the help of a teacher.
  • Teachers can augment an online-only class by establishing a social media page or account simply for building community.
  • Students can practice using social platforms responsibly, including maintaining a respectful online discourse.
  • Teachers can communicate directly with parents as needed, and parents can stay informed of school news via a convenient, easily accessible platform.

However, please watch out for these potential drawbacks:

  • Social media can be a major distraction, especially if students are accessing their personal accounts independently.
  • If students primarily use social platforms to participate in class discussions, they can miss out on practicing face-to-face conversations and respectful in-person discourse.
  • Some students may see social media assignments as an opportunity to cyberbully their classmates, and there is always a risk of someone posting inappropriate content or language.

— Social Media in Education

“THE WHAT” — Several Success Stories

Balancing the positives and negatives and taking into account all of these precautions in order to maintaining professional boundaries, the integration of new technology into the classroom may offer excellent enrichment and increase student motivation for advanced learning. This may take many forms. Here are a few interesting models.

Prior to preparing for the DCMEA online session in 2020, I stumbled upon a truly inspiring post from Derek Muller, a gifted teacher, physicist, filmmaker, and founder of the YouTube channel Vertiasium which has captured millions of subscribers. He offers one of the BEST models of using social media to enrich the understanding of learning math and science (applicable to all fields of study), while at the same time, provides warnings against unbridled use of so-called “innovation for innovation’s sake.”

“I feel like people over the years are invariably drawn to use these words:  revolutionize and education. And there’s this sort of amnesia that we’ve had a hundred years’ worth of these predictions, worth of really groundbreaking technologies that have transformed other areas in our lives but have failed to fundamentally change the way we do education. So, I stand here today as a voice of caution, to think that the future of education is not one of revolutions…”

You need to watch this: How is Social Media Transforming the Future of Education? (2016)
— Derek Muller

Say what you want about how COVID significantly disrupted our educational programs, evidence of learning loss, problems in socio-emotional development, decline of student engagement and self-motivation, rise in mental health struggles, decreased instructional time, and the effects of a new digital divide of under-served students (Annie E. Casey Foundation), happily there were surprisingly a few positive advancements — the results of exploring new tools and methodologies we had to employ to tread water and cope with the catastrophe. (“When life hands you lemons, make lemonade!”)

As one example, in the middle of preparing music for my community orchestra, we were shut down in 2020. No in-person rehearsals at the school. I then pivoted to creating my own online platform called SHJOOLA (South Hills Junior Orchestra Online Academy) in 2021 using MusicFirst. For a nominal yearly subscription fee, I was able to continue my Saturday morning classes (synchronous) as well as asynchronous (on-their-own time) learning using excellent applications in a virtual environment: MusicFirst Classroom, Focus on Sound, PracticeFirst, Sight-Reading Factory, Musition, Auralia, a web-based music notation program, and a huge library of method books and ensemble music. Several past blogs showed how we rolled out SHJOOLA:

The latter link above also provided a comprehensive list of supplementary resources (at the time) for online music education. Please peruse these even though some of them may have now gone inactive. We will provide supplemental links at the bottom of this article.

Another direction accented by the onslaught of the pandemic was digital streaming performances, incorporating technology in both the solo and ensemble settings. The following are two of my favorite examples of these to be viewed on YouTube:

Circle of Life from Disney’s Lion King (2015-18) by Sam Robson, arranger, innovator and performer using multitrack recording of a single performer mixing as many as 50 voices at one time.

Cloudburst, a Virtual & Live Choir and TEDTALK (2013) by Eric Whitacre

Well… sorry this blog has grown to be so large! If you admit to understanding the potential hazards of and precautions for integrating social media, social networks and other technologies into education, we’ll close with the following bibliography of additional resources for further study. If that is not enough to whet your curiosity, stop back in several months to download a copy of my slide summary for the session I will present at the DCMEA Winter Conference on January 30, 2026.

Be careful — stay safe and professional — but ENJOY!

Sample Blogs

Several Major Platforms

Examples of Music Applications/Websites

PKF

© 2025 Paul K. Fox

Ethical Conundrums Revisited – Part II

paulkfoxLeave a comment

More About Ethics in Education

“Food for Thought” for Teachers

Resolving Problems in Daily Professional Decision-Making

 

Business Ethics

For a review of Part I of this article, please visit https://paulkfoxusc.wordpress.com/2018/08/20/ethical-conundrums-revisited-part-i/. The entire blog-series can be read (in reverse chronological order) at https://paulkfoxusc.wordpress.com/category/ethics/.

Regardless of whether you are a first-year teacher, recently hired or transferred, or someone who has many years of experience, we know that little training is provided for handling our daily contradictions or controversies in school ethics. This investigation illustrates several additional obstacles in maintaining appropriate professional and ethical behavior and exploring the application of the moral decision-making “compass” for educators. Here we will rehash more modern-day dilemmas using “mock scenarios” in the workplace, encourage business-woman-2137559_1920_andreas160578you to reflect and respond to “what would you do?” and even re-orient you to the paradoxes in which you may encounter that may not seem to offer an obvious resolution.

It’s time to put on your “thinking caps!” What are your initial impressions of a few of these “conundrums” or conflicts?

MCEETo foster meaningful scrutiny and study of the bulleted issues in bold above, we will sort these problems by Principle III “Responsibility to Students” and Principle IV “Responsibility to the School Community” of the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification (NASDTEC) “Model Code of Ethics for Educators” (MCEE):  https://www.nasdtec.net/general/custom.asp?page=MCEE_Doc. In addition, whenever possible, a link to a scenario or case study about the subject will be shared. It is recommended that, in a small group of your peers, you view each video/text resource and assess its ramifications on the ethical appearances (professional image) and actions (intent and interpretation). In my opinion, this is the BEST way to study ethical dilemmas. Here are a few key essential questions to help promote in-depth dialogue:

  1. What possible ethical concerns might this scenario raise?
  2. How could this situation become a violation of state law, the “Code” or school/district policies?
  3. In this situation, what are some potential negative consequences for the teacher, student, parents, school staff, and/or community?
  4. How would this episode affect a teacher’s efficacy in his/her classroom, demean the employing school entity, or damage his/her position as a moral exemplar in the community?

 

fear-2012536_1920_ElisaRiva

 

Responsibility to Students

MCEE III A 2, 5, 6

Study scenarios on INAPPROPRIATE RELATIONSHIPS:

CONUNDRUM: Coming home from a successful musical performance, my wife noticed on my tuxedo stains of stage make-up caused by several actors’ “musical hugs.” “Should you let the performers hug you backstage?” she asked, and scolded me to “be more careful!”

“No touch” policies for teachers in schools really do not make a lot of sense. There are many who agree that casual contact like a pat on the back may even be helpful. See:

MY ADVICE: Music teachers “touch” their students all the time; it is part of the natural process of assisting them to hold and play a new instrument. I am not opposed to an occasional celebratory or consoling hug. The factors that may contribute to the moment being judged “okay” vs. “inappropriate” boil down to:hug-1315552_1920_markzfilter

  • Intent
  • Setting
  • Length of time
  • Frequency or patterns of repetition
  • Comfort level of the student
  • Age level of the student
  • Being in public
  • Who started it?

If a child is in distress, pulling him/her aside from the rest of the class and consoling with a light/half/side hug should not be a problem. This issue is one that requires judgement based on common sense – don’t encourage repeated contacts or “get carried away.”

However, young/rookie teachers may be surprised about one violation included in the official definition of “sexual misconduct,” judged as “crossing the boundaries” and inappropriate by most state codes: “exchange of gifts with no educational purpose.” (Reference from the PA Professional Standards and Practices Commission)

 

bag-1868758_1920_Pexels

MCEE III C 1, 2, 3

Study scenarios on STUDENT PRIVACY RIGHTS:

Legal protections for student confidentiality are mandated by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and other Federal regulations. (See previous blog-post, “Ethics Follow-up” at https://paulkfoxusc.wordpress.com/category/ethics/.) You must remain very discrete about divulging or transferring any “non-directory data” about “your charges.” The operative saying is, “When in doubt, don’t give it out.”

privacy-policy-1624400_1920_succo

REMEMBER – NEVER GOSSIP! Discussing an incident or behavior concern with another teacher in the hallway between classes or sitting down in the teacher’s room is never advisable, and it is probably illegal! Educators must, at all costs, avoid inadvertently disclosing personal information about the lives or actions of our students “in public.” Even carrying on a conversation with a student in an open or common area that could be construed as a “private matter” may be accidentally overheard, and therefore violate a student’s privacy rights.

EXCEPTIONS to third-party disclosure prohibitions (source):

  • Other educators or officials within the same school who have legitimate educational interests in the student.
  • When disclosure of information is necessary to protect the safety and health of the student.
  • Another school to which a student is transferring.
  • In order to comply with a judicial order.
  • Interested parties who are determining a student’s financial aid eligibility.

CONUNDRUM: How do you resolve the apparent contradiction of the recommendation of never holding a meeting alone with a student with the need to provide a safe/secure place to share information?

MY SOLUTION: Confer with your student in a place with sight-lines to the hallway (windows) but sound insulated from hearing the voices inside and/or where there is a high probability of someone interrupting and stopping the conversation.

 

conference-2110770_1920_geralt

Responsibility to the School Community

MCEE IV A 1, 2

Study scenarios and articles on INTERACTIONS WITH PARENTS AND STAFF:

CONUNDRUM: You receive a call from an angry parent who wants to know why her daughter was not awarded the lead in the school play. The mother wants a detailed assessment of her child’s skills and advice on how to prepare for future auditions.

board-3700116_1920_athree23MY SOLUTION: This is more common than you would like. This episode compels you to figure out how to wear two unique hats simultaneously – the educator and the judge. Assuming you were clear (in writing) on the requirements of the try-outs, even sharing the blank rubric that would be used for the evaluations, you are now charged to find the “best” person for each lead assignment based on a number of criteria:

  • Needed solo character parts in the play
  • Voice part of the candidate
  • Musical skills
  • Dramatic skills, which may be further categorized/ranked by oral/voice technique, projection, character development, understanding of text, and stage presence
  • Dancing/movement skills
  • Type of projection: the potential for acting a comedic vs. romantic role
  • Height (relevant if partnered with another character)
  • Overall preparation

Of course, these expectations and targeted assessments should have been shared with everyone before the auditions were held.

Parents want “what is right” for their kids and for them to feel successful. You as the director want the ideal cast for the show, providing the best chance for the entire company’s success in performance, but must show that the entire process is impartial, consistent, and fair.  As a teacher, it is your responsibility to listen to the students’ and parents’ concerns, but I feel it is not realistic nor appropriate for you to “adjudicate” each actor’s audition. I wrote about this distinction HERE in my last “Fox’s Fireside” blog-post. This is an article you can “pass around” prior to your next tryout.

 

argument-238529_1920_RyanMcGuire.jpg

MCEE IV B 1, 2, 4, 8

CONUNDRUM: Maintaining professional relationships with your teaching colleagues vs. the mandatory reporting of unethical behavior and inappropriate speech/actions.

A member of the staff is “bad mouthing” you, the principal or other school staff members in public. You are assigned to work side-by-side with him, and yet he does not interact with the staff with civility or respect, nor does he support the academic achievement and related goals that promote the best interests of students.

MY SOLUTION: Thankfully, I have had no personal experience with this scenario, but can recommend that you first try to deal directly with the unethical colleague. According to MCEE, professionals must collaborate and maintain effective and appropriate relationships with the faculty, “resolving conflicts, whenever possible, privately and respectfully and in accordance with district policy.” Before you bring up the matter with your supervisor or building administrator (which you have the right and even responsibility to do, especially if the students hear any improper speech first-hand or that the incidents rise to the level of bullying or aggressive behavior), talk to the unhappy team member one-on-one. Be calm and sensitive, but hold your ground: you must assert that his/her behavior/language is unacceptable and will not be tolerated in the future.

The suggestions of Mind Tool’s article “Five Ways to Deal With Rudeness at the enraged-804311_1920_johnhainWorkplace” are applicable (read their entire blog-post at https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/five-ways-deal-with-rudeness.htm):

  1. Be a good role model.
  2. Don’t ignore it.
  3. Deal directly with the culprit.
  4. Listen.
  5. Follow-up on any offender.

As for anything that is a violation of the teachers’ code of ethical conduct, you are mandated to report the transgressions of a colleague that threaten the health and safety of the students, especially any observations (or even suspicions) of verbal, physical, or sexual abuse/misconducts.

As for one’s “freedom of expression” to complain about administrators or co-workers, especially in the use of social media, the National Education Association responds:

“Let’s debunk the free speech myth: Many teachers believe they have the absolute First Amendment right to post anything they want on social networking sites, including party pix and diatribes about the boss. After all, they’re on their own time and using their own resources. Sadly, the courts say otherwise.”

 

music-students-246844_1920_musikschule

As a follow-up, visit additional resources in “Becoming a Music Educator.” Please feel free to leave your comments and links to share other scenarios of ethical “conundrums.”

PKF

© 2018 Paul K. Fox

Photo credits (in order) from Pixabay.com: “meadow” by geralt, “business woman” by andreas160578, “trumpeter” by klimkin, “fear” by ElisaRiva, “fear” by markzfilter , “bag” by Pexels, “privacy policy” by succo, “conference” by geralt, “Board” by athree23, “argument” by RyanMcGuire, “enraged” by johnhain, and “music students” by musikschule.