In week four we had guest speaker Jesse Miller come in and speak with us. He was engaging and spoke to us about privacy and online presence as teachers. He enforced that as adults we have the right to use digital spaces but talked us through some of the pitfalls that teachers can fall into. I think that way he phrased it as ‘if it’s publicly available online it should match your teaching persona’ was very palatable. I also thought that the idea of transparency was very interesting. When working with kids in person I would never want to be alone in a room with no visible, or have them think anything I say with them they can’t repeat to their families. Online it should be the same. The practical element that Jesse taught us about servers was very helpful. If one creates a teacher Instagram where they might interact with students it should be done with a school district email so they can access messages.

How we behave online and how that intersects with our identities as teachers is a new issue and so guidance can be hard to find. I really appreciated Jesse’s guidance on these ideas and will take what he has said into my daily practices.