Posting assignments, announcements and other ‘informative’ stuff on social media sites such as Facebook has become the norm. Teachers seem to have found an easy and effective way to interact with their students. On the students part, they now are able to even ask help in solving problems or pose any questions with their teachers. Is this ‘connection’ right in a moral sense or has some barrier been crossed?

There is no doubt that keeping the lines of communication open will indeed be useful in the classroom and will be a great help in taking care of the academic needs of each student. But there are other problems that have emerged.

As a former Abington educator heads to court following allegations of inappropriate interaction with teenagers on Facebook, school districts that do not have policies governing online social networking are working to complete them as soon as possible.

Schools officials say they want not only to protect students from predators, but also to protect teachers who have good intentions from getting involved in students’ lives in inappropriate ways or ways that create the appearance of impropriety.

The problem comes in drawing the line between what is an acceptable student-teacher relationship and what is inappropriate. Having personal information and photos available to teachers may be the start of the development of improper relationships.

Is prohibiting staff from accepting Facebook friend requests an extreme measure though? It depends on whose side you look at it. For innocent teachers who just want to help their students and students who just want to be helped, it may ‘bad thing’. On the other hand, think about those predators out there, just waiting for another victim and those innocent kids who become their prey-doesn’t your blood boil?!

Their is no other way for school authorities to protect their students and teachers as well.  Though teachers should know better what to do and say on Facebook, it may turn out to be an ‘unnecessary temptation’. Besides, how did they fare when there was no Facebook or Internet for that matter? Maybe, it’s better keep things traditional.

Read more here.

If you’ve already got all the social media sites that you think you need, you may not be quite interested in getting one more. Google +  currently has about 5M users in the short time it has been introduced. Is it just like the other social media sites though? There are a couple of features that make it quite unique.

Circles not Just Friends

With Facebook, we all know how it works- it’s either you’re friends or not. Though you can share specific things with specific people, the process of editing every one of these settings and customizing who gets to see them is really cumbersome.

Google + has come up with a really interesting and practical solution to this problem. You can create your own circles and share different things with each or your circles. With your High School friends, all those party pics would be something to share. For closer friends, you can share your updates, feelings or whatever. Only those in that circle get to see what you share with them!

This is a huge revolution when it comes to how you share stuff with. The good thing is they don’t get to know under what circle you’ve put them in so it really stays personal and is far more realistic.

Keeping Privacy up

With the way Google + works, you can really sift the groups of people you want to share stuff with. Down to  your updates! Instead of having a single status message, you can have several that can be seen by different circles. This will help you keep your ‘private’ information PRIVATE.

Updates with Spark

This is a feature that allows you to get information on whatever things interests you. It as good as brings the power of Google alerts into your site. This is definitely something other social media sites don’t have.

All in One

If you’re thinking Facebook still has an edge with the video thing it’s started-think again! You can both chat and video chat with friends using ‘Hangouts’. And so can you connect your Google+ account to your mobile phone just like all the other Social media sites.

You may have thought that Google+ is a super professional site that will be no fun at all but this isn’t at all the case! It’s everything all your social media sites have to offer and much more. It isn’t JUST another social media site.

Read more here.

With all the negative feedback about the dangers about social media, you may wonder if it’s really worth it. If you’ve already had an account on all the recent social networking sites for some time, without seeing anything happening. So is it really worth it? The time, the privacy issues and all. Just why should you bother with Social media anyway?

It’s with the way you can convert all those ‘followers’ into customers. This doesn’t come automatically though. You really have to work for it. In short, it will be waste of time and effort and all the other ‘negative’ things if you allow it to.

The key is coming up with strategies. Don’t expect that simply having a profile will be good enough for you to benefit from your social media. Know where to get an account, take care of your account, be interactive.

If you want to make sure that your followers don’t stay passive but really get engaged in your business is to make things fun. You can post for example some competition on your wall that will have some perk in store for them. Give them reason to want to get and keep connected to you.

It’s always about ‘what will this do for me’ so make it interesting.

Look at what your doing right now with your social media efforts and ask yourself this question – What could I do that would entice some percentage of my followers to willingly and joyfully give me their email address? – answer that and you’ll turn your social media efforts into a powerful lead generation machine.

Read more here.

Allegations that hackers hijacked the Fox News Twitter feed Monday and used it to tweet incorrectly that President Obama had been assassinated have showed the dark side of social media.

Imagine that?Hackers take control of the Fox News Twitter- a site everyone is sure to believe in and tweets this really bad news. What does this say about social media in general then? It definitely has its dark side.

No matter how useful it may be for your business or for keeping in touch with friends, the fact remains that you really are in danger online. Not only do these ‘criminals’ hack into sites but they post subtle messages and hide them in links to alleged funny videos.  But how do they do it?

Jeff Misenti, vice president and general manager of Fox News Digital, said in a statement: “The network was not in control of the account once it was hacked, and Twitter was unreachable until late morning eastern time yesterday. The tweets were taken down as soon as Twitter gave back control of the account to the network.”

This shows the ‘sad’ truth-Twitter, Facebook and all other social networking sites really can’t stop these hackers. For users, everything you put out there has the potential to be hacked into. Lesson: BEWARE.

As for the social networking sites, well lets say people shouldn’t believe everything they see there. I mean look at Twitter, if hackers were able to hack into Fox News, whose to say they aren’t the ones behind whatever news you hear there!

Conclusion-it’s a risk entering these networks but you just have to make sure it’s a risk worth taking.

Read the entire article here.