All Posts Tagged With: "Facebook"

Facebook is king but Twitter, LinkedIn grow

Jessica Darmanin

One in three anglophone Canadians won’t let a single day go by without checking into their social media feeds, suggests a new report by the Media Technology Monitor.

The report is based on telephone surveys with 4,001 anglophone Canadians in the fall and found almost seven in 10 Internet users declared they were regular social media users, logging on at least once a month. That figure was up by about six per cent compared to 2011.

Those growing numbers didn’t surprise Aimée Morrison, an associate professor at the University of Waterloo, who researches digital culture.

“It’s becoming a mainstream part of how we get the business of life accomplished and you’re at a disadvantage increasingly if you don’t do it,” says Morrison.

Continue reading Two in three Canadians use social media

What students are talking about today (December 28th)

Zuckerberg's photo (via @cschweitz)

1. Randi Zuckerberg, the sister of Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, was upset that a Facebook “friend” shared a family photo (including Mark) with the entire internet. “Digital etiquette: always ask permission before posting a friend’s photo publicly. It’s not about privacy settings, it’s about human decency,” Zuckerberg Tweeted after Callie Schweitzer shared the snapshot with more than 39,000 followers. Schweitzer deleted the photo, but that didn’t do much good. Facebook has done more to make our “private” photos public than any other site, so countless Internet users felt schadenfreude that the founder’s family’s privacy had been breached. You can see the photo here (and many other places). Does this mean I have no human decency either?

2. Nathan Weaver, a student at Clemson University in South Carolina, wanted to figure out the best way to assist turtles in crossing the road, so he put a real-looking rubber turtle in the middle of a busy street near campus. In the next hour, seven drivers intentionally ran over the turtle and several more looked like they tried to hit it. About one in 50 hit the turtle. It takes turtles several minutes to cross roads, so evil humans could be the reason turtle populations are declining.

Continue reading A Zuckerberg photo, turtle killers & fiscal mismangement

Online rants could hurt my future career

Sham Hardy/Flickr

Writing was always an outlet for me. Whenever I felt emotionally constipated, I would grab my laptop and write my heart out. On top of the work I did as News Editor at Excalibur, York University’s student paper, I’d type out angry rants, poorly written fiction, and hazy recollections of childhood. One day I had the pompous idea that other people might like what I write, so I started blogging.

I ranted about unpaid internships, experiences in teacher’s college, and other embarrassing parts of my life. I managed to reconnect with a few old high school friends who came across my writing. My former teachers encouraged me to keep updating my blog. I was flattered that people were taking time to read my work. I was proud.

About four months and 30-odd posts later, I shut it down. Here’s why.

Continue reading Why I shut down my blog

Supreme Court grants “A.B.” anonymity

Spencer E Holtaway/Flickr

A teenage girl allegedly defamed on a bogus Facebook page can proceed with a lawsuit without revealing her name, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled Thursday.

The judges ruled 7-0 that the girl is entitled to anonymity to prevent her from becoming a victim a second time.

But the court also rejected her request for a publication ban on the defamation suit, as long as she is not identified in any materials made public.

The case made its way to the Supreme Court after the girl’s family appealed a Nova Scotia Court of Appeal decision.

The girl, known as A.B. in court documents, was 15 when she and her family sought a court order compelling Internet service provider Eastlink to reveal the identity of the person who had allegedly set up the fake Facebook profile about her.

Continue reading Teen target of mean Facebook page can keep identity secret

Victoria student Sol Kauffman says profs talk too much

Photo by Laura Mills

From the Maclean’s Student Issue, on sale now.

It’s 3 p.m. on a Monday and I’m sitting in my afternoon writing lecture. The professor has been reviewing PowerPoint slides for half an hour now. In one window of my laptop, I’m brewing ideas for the paper due at the end of this week; in another, I’m editing a photo shoot I did on the weekend. In my busy life, this is the perfect opportunity to get some work done. I half listen to the lecture, perking up when a question is asked. Lots of chairs in front of me are empty. Obviously the usual number of people are skipping class today. Maybe they’re sick, maybe they’re working a part-time job; hell, maybe they just slept in. In front of me, I see a student on Facebook, another writing in her journal, another texting on a phone. I know these students and they’re strong writers; I’m confident they’ll all pass with at least a B+. It’s not that the assignments are easy. On the contrary, we’ll all spend some sleepless nights grinding away at them. So why are so many of us absent, physically or mentally, from lectures?

Continue reading Stop lecturing students

Prof. Pettigrew’s unofficial rules for social networking

Photo by luc legay on Flickr

Considering how ubiquitous social media sites are, it’s surprising that few universities in Canada seem to have policies providing guidance for how faculty members, or students for that matter, should use them in the university setting.

Some universities do have guidelines, like these at Brock, but they seem to be mainly interested in protecting the university’s brand and keeping the school out of lawsuits. Those kinds of guidelines don’t hurt, but they don’t help professors know what’s acceptable and appropriate.

I know some professors where I work wish there was a policy—my student is trying to friend me, what do I do? And my own observation reveals a wide range of attitudes as to what’s okay and what’s not. Some treat their student friends on Facebook just like everyone else; others never connect with their students and regard those who do with scorn.

Continue reading Should you friend your prof?

Website offers profs group therapy

Photo by Laura Mills

June Madeley is annoyed with the increasingly rude demands she gets from students at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John. Ten years ago, it was common for them to see her during office hours when they had a question. “Now there’s an expectation that we’ll answer their emails immediately and meet them whenever there’s a good time for them.” And as surely as the leaves pile up on campus each October, the communications professor knows her inbox will soon fill with complaints about mid-terms scheduled for the week after the Thanksgiving holiday. “There are a lot of people who feel they can’t make the exam because of travel arrangements,” she says. “And others who think it’s unfair that they have to study that weekend.”

But when Madeley gets frustrated, she doesn’t fire off a snotty email to the student. She logs on to “That’s ‘Professor’ Uptight to You, Johnny,” a Facebook group with 297 members, all of them teaching at universities and colleges. The members-only site is a place where university educators can vent in the form of steaming emails they wish they could write to their students but can’t because that would be, well, rude. Madeley, who says she hasn’t posted yet, enjoys reading the rants from her colleagues. The site is run by Khrystyne Keane, a Connecticut-based editor for a non-profit group, who took over its administration as a favour to a professor friend. The logo—a unicorn standing under a rainbow—is a jab at students, some of whom feel they are every bit as special as the fabled one-horned horse and the multicoloured arc.

The posts are all written to anonymous Janeys and Johnnies, but they share one trait: carefully crafted sarcasm. “Dear Johnny, I suspect that if you had spent as much time and effort on your last assignment as you did on the long flaming email you just sent me, this whole ‘conversation’ would never have happened,” reads one. “Dear Janey, I want to assure you that we didn’t do anything important in class. We just stared out the window for three hours in silence,” reads another.

Nothing riles a professor more than asking about material covered in a skipped lecture. But Joey O’Kane, a vice-president of the University of New Brunswick Student Union, thinks it’s no big deal. He also thinks it’s reasonable to expect email responses from profs within 24 hours, preferably 12. “Professors have a pretty good gig,” he says. “You put in some office hours, you teach for a few hours and then you end up with a decent paycheque, so taking 10 minutes out of your day to respond to a few emails . . . I don’t think that’s asking too much.”

Kevin Maness, another Facebook member from Eastern University in Pennsylvania, recalls a student who emailed him a couple of weeks after the last semester ended and asked if there was anything he could do to increase his grade because he had been “too busy” playing basketball. Incredulous, Maness wanted to shoot off a caustic retort. Long before he had even heard about That’s “Professor” Uptight, someone else had addressed the same complaint with a post that read: “Dear Johnny, Just tell me the grade you want and I’ll change it in the book, because it doesn’t really matter anyway.” After joining the group last month, Maness has found it to be “great group therapy.”

When Maness attended the University of Pennsylvania in the early ’90s, he accepted that professors would challenge him. In return for doing the coursework, he was rewarded with the grade he had earned. Now, if he hands out a C-minus “it’s almost like a complete shock to them.”

So why the attitude? In their book Lowering Higher Education: The Rise of Corporate Universities and the Fall of Liberal Education, University of Western Ontario sociologists James Côté and Anton Allahar say it started when higher education became purely a financial exchange. Funding pressures forced universities to accept as many students as possible, even those who weren’t suited to academics, says Côté. That crowds lecture halls with students who shouldn’t be there.

At the very least, one educator feels students should learn to mind their manners. At the University of Minnesota, law professor Michele Goodwin added “civility” to her course requirements this September. “Failure to follow this guideline will affect your final grade,” she wrote in the class syllabus, explaining that emails should include the basic salutation “Dear Professor Goodwin” and not “Hey Prof.”

She even assigned practice email as homework. “It’s a bit awkward for professors to think, wow, this is actually my job now?” says Goodwin, who blogs for industry publication The Chronicle of Higher Education, “but it’s necessary.” If the new rules don’t work out, at least she has a place to commiserate. The professor can always join That’s “Professor” Uptight to You, Johnny.

Editor’s Note: I wrote this story for the print edition of Maclean’s. As both Profs. Maness and Magatha have pointed out in the comments section, it should have included more nuance. For one, I should have made it more clear that every single professor I spoke to for this piece exuded passion for teaching. Indeed, research shows that North American professors work on average around 55 hours per week and many of those hours are dedicated to helping students learn beyond the classroom—something they get little credit for. The profs. also made it clear that there are many students who don’t fit the stereotype of entitled. I agree. While it’s a challenge to decide what to include in the space allotted, I should have done a better job. I also want to note that there was a factual error in this story that was introduced in the editing process. Maness did not read a complaint “months earlier” from another professor who sarcastically offered to change a student’s grade. That was merely what he said he might have written had he know about the page at the time.

Rhode Island legislators say Facebook causes bullying

The U.S. state Rhode Island has passed an “anti-bullying” law that creates a state-wide ban on the use of social networking sites anywhere on school property. As The Huffington Post points out, that means students won’t be able to access the legislature’s own Facebook page, which could make it difficult for the government to extend its fan-base beyond the eight people who have “liked” it so far.

UWO student ejected from Harper rally for Facebook picture with Ignatieff

All you F-35 Joint Strike Fighter naysayers—this’ll make you bite your tongues.  After all, the proof is in the pudding, and just this past weekend, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives proved the need to stay vigilant against enemies, many of whom can appear in even the most innocuous of forms.

Of course, I’m talking about 19-year-old University of Western Ontario student Awish Aslam, who managed to infiltrate a Harper rally in London on Sunday despite having a Facebook picture of her with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. The audacity, I know. How the undecided voter managed to get in, I’m not sure; but she and a friend were escorted out of the rally shortly after signing in.

According to Aslam, a man led them to a back room, tore up their name tags, and told them they weren’t welcome at the event. “We were confused,” Aslam told the London Free Press. “He said, ‘We know you guys have ties to the Liberal party through Facebook.’”

I don’t know how many times we must drill this message home, but students: Please exercise discretion when posting things online!  Yes, you may have a night where you down too many beers with friends and decide to ‘Like’ the Canadian Learning Passport on the Liberal Facebook page, but others will notice your actions! And it goes further than that. Every time you sign onto Farmville and don’t post a comment about the long-gun registry, know you’re making a political statement. For every occasion you send a ‘Poke,’ you should be requesting a fitness tax credit. And finally, never, ever, ever, refer to a group message as a “Coalition.” Vague insinuations are fine, though.

All parties want to encourage the youth vote, of course, but they can’t help it if young people disenfranchise themselves through mistakes like these. Young people should know better than to explore their political options before casting a vote –and worse yet–posting a totally meaningless picture online. Remember: don’t chew Big Red on Harper’s turf, unless you plan to stick it on the bottom of your shoe.

Tutorial assistant wrote ‘My student’s papers are making me dumber’

York University is investigating a tutorial assistant who made disparaging comments about her student’s intelligence on Facebook. According to campus paper the Excalibur, the status update from sociology TA Bianca Baggiarini, read in part: “My student’s papers are making me dumber, so very stupid; by the minute. Please, make them, stop.” Posted on Feb. 22, the comments have since been taken down.

One of the students from Baggiarini’s tutorial told the paper that he was surprised. “It’s definitely not professional mixing work with Facebook, because that is public,” he said. Another student said that “If she assumes that there is an issue – I mean, clearly the TA assumed there was an issue by calling [the students] stupid – and the TA obviously has the opinion that her class is not understanding or really getting it, then I think the remedy should be ‘I’m here to help’ not ‘I’m going to post it on Facebook.”

Sociology chair, Nancy Mandell, whose department is investigating the matter, said that she was “disappointed.” The Canadian Union of Public Employees, which represents TAs at York, does not have a policy on social media, and would not comment on the specifics of the case.