Profile settings in learning environments, including social media platforms used in educational contexts, are worth to be addressed on institutional level or on relevant study units.
An engaging way to discuss the profile settings is to have students to liaise with others via commenting on each other’s profiles. Relevant topics are, for example:
PHOTOS:
- Recognizable thumbnail or other profiles picture for promoting interaction and team bonding.
- Use of questionable images, reputational harms.
- Tagging practices of shared photos.
- Publishing images and copy rights
PRIVACY SETTINGS
- Need to change settings vs. trusting privacy settings.
- Who can follow , how much and what kind of information is made visible to peer students or educators.?
- Private messaging in educational contexts.
- Contact information: What to include?
NAMES, USER NAMES
- Using real names vs. made-up user names?
- Full names vs. first names?
- Professionalism of user names.
It is important that studends have knowledge how to remove or edit one’s own profile. An alternative way needs to be offered for students to complete assignments in case the student does not want to create a digital profile.