Why+have+Social+Networking+Week

toc =Once said can not be unsaid=

Online profile has consequences
Increasingly, online sites like [|myspace], [|facebook] and [|bebo], as well as general searches using tools like Google, are being used to [|research a potential employee]. They have also been used as the basis for [|terminating employment].

Other articles and examples here
 * The [|article] describes how some people were turned down for employment because of what they had published online. The important thing here is that employers are looking at your online profile and the result for these particular people was negative. What would you need to do for a positive result?
 * Here is another negative story where a person was [|denied her teaching degree] (second story [|here])because of her myspace page where there is a [|picture] of herself apparently drinking.

Here are a couple of articles where teacher's online profile has created some controversy
 * [|Teachers on myspace] - what the kids could find out about you.
 * [| Teacher's MySpace Site Distributed]

Identity theft could also be an issue although there are many ways that you identity can be stolen that do not involve the use of computers or the internet

//So is the answer not to publish online and to not be part of these online communities?//

Negatives can be positives
Where there are negatives there are also positives. Our online profile can be very powerful and it is important that we learn how to harness this to our advantage. It could help us win a job, contract or even a funding grant.

What are kids doing online?
In the [|Australian tour of Danah Boyd], sponsored by education.au, she [|stated] that in the past youth were free to hang out with each other in all sorts of physical places that is not happening these days. Parents fear that their kids will be kidnapped, assaulted and so on. Online social networking provides kids with the place to hang out and socialise.

Danah suggests that it would be best for us to embrace online social networking and open up the conversations that promote the growth of ethical and moral learning.

//Learn to consistently respect each other and to understand that once you say something you can not unsay it.//

//Why Facebook?//
[|Learning from the Kids] Probably a site that teachers are more likely to persist with - see the article [|Social capital gained] from The Weekend Australian, 27/11/07