Recently there has been a lot of mediums created for teachers to easily connect with students outside of the classroom. What used to be hailed as "inappropriate" and teachers were told to "stay away from", is now being used for teachers to connect, respond to, and use to educate their students. Social media is now praised as a new way to teach students and for teachers to use to inform students outside of their class of new information, updates, or reminders. Twitter, Remind.com, and even Facebook groups are being used more and more by educators, but is it ever too much?
I read articles about how teachers who are constantly connected to their jobs go through "burnout" much quicker than teachers who take a break from the educational world. Is anyone worried about this with our students? When do we allow our students to walk away from us, and how do we know when to draw the line between "hey this is just your teacher reminding you or giving you some more information about..." and "hey, this is your teacher not letting you forget about me and our class and insisting that you keep thinking about school 24/7"?
I use Twitter and Remind.com for my classes, and I am part of a Facebook group for the senior class at my school that regularly updates the students on important events coming up. Mostly, these three are used to remind students and give them important updates that I don't want them to forget, but I wonder if I am doing them a disservice. Is this not only forging the line between school and life, but also taking away the opportunity to teach them responsibility?
I've had students get mad at me for giving them a test without sending them a remind text the night before. This test date had been written on the board for four days and I had told them about it every day for a week, but it was because I had reminded them while they were at home and able to study, that I was somehow in the wrong. Part of this is just the "I'm going to whine because I didn't get my way," but I honestly think that part of it is that I dug my own grave. I have trained them to expect updates from me via technology to constantly remind them to do what they should already be reminding themselves to do.
So when is it too much tech?
