Tweeting pictures: sharing to learn, learning to share Anna Wilson School of Education, University of Stirling

Boundaries as regulation “Do not discuss work-related issues online, including conversations about patients or complaints about colleagues. Even when anonymised, these are likely to be inappropriate. Never post pictures of patients or service users, even if they ask you to do this. Our guidance on record keeping states clearly, "you should not take or keep photographs of any person, or their family, that are not clinically relevant" (NMC 2009b). If your mobile phone has a camera, you should not use it in the workplace.” Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2012

Boundaries as jeopardy “Nurses and midwives will put their registration at risk, and students may jeopardise their ability to join our register, if they: Share confidential information online. Post inappropriate comments about colleagues or patients. Use social networking sites to bully or intimidate colleagues. Pursue personal relationships with patients or service users. Distribute sexually explicit material. Use social networking sites in any way which is unlawful. This list is not intended to be exhaustive.” Nursing and Midwifery Council, 2012

Boundaries as jeopardy “… registered teachers and those who may be seeking registration in the future, (such as student teachers), should be aware of the many challenges and ramifications associated with the use of electronic communication and social media. “This Professional Guidance will help identify potential dangers, offer some guidance about how to avoid them and provide a context for responsible, professional use of electronic communication and social media.” Examples of behaviour resulting in disciplinary action: posting/sending sexually explicit pictures/images to colleagues or pupils possessing, making, viewing or distributing indecent images of children General Teaching Council (Scotland), n.d.

Boundaries as protection Advice to teachers: “Manage your privacy settings and keep them under review. These are particularly important in regard to photos, and remember that no privacy mechanism is 100% guaranteed; … ensure your settings prohibit others from tagging you in any photos or updates without your permission … … be aware of and comply with your employer’s rules and policy in regard to taking and sharing photos of children” General Teaching Council (Scotland), n.d.

What midwives share

What teachers share

Boundaries as regulation (reality) You don’t know the rights within or between countries. In relation to pictures … I don’t know what, where you’d stand (M5) I personally wouldn’t put up an image of myself in a uniform identifying where I was from … And also, I’m not entirely sure it’s allowed. By whoever. So that’s kind of dubious (M3) The NMC are not very happy about having pictures [of midwives] posted even if you’re not discussing anything at all of a professional nature. But I’m not so sure about that … we really need to talk about what’s appropriate because these things are (M4)

Boundaries and networks the kids at school, they ask me all the time you know are you on Twitter, what’s your Twitter handle and I don’t tell them about this one. … oh I tell them I have one and that I’ve got a thousand followers, and they’re welcome to look at it. But I say if you follow me, and I know it’s you, and you try to contact me, I’ll block you. … Only because it makes you vulnerable and complicates quite a lot of things if kids start contacting you through that process. … You know open to accusations of inappropriate contact. Or if some students follow you and others don’t, that could be seen as some kind of favouritism. You want to keep the relationships clear (T2)

Boundaries as liminal spaces I would never use an image without signed consent. … But I suppose we’re all different and as long as it’s not some random child then it’s at her discretion … It’s a nice image though so if anything her sister is probably quite proud of the picture (M1) I don’t think you’ve got the right to do anything like that … even when they’re giving permission. A mother who sees that at one point might have one feeling about it and then – 6 months down the line, in a different emotional state maybe look at that and it could have very negative impacts (M3)

Boundaries as liminal spaces … I don’t take their pictures. Maybe it’s slightly different with the older kids, but because mine are only 10 year olds no, I definitely don’t take their pictures … what I do is I do get their parents’ consent, and I put a camera in the room, and I take pictures of them … when it’s like parties, or when it’s something going on, so I don’t take a lot of kids in the classroom. (T3) OK so this is an image of children at a conference for children that I ran … It was amazing, so it was pretty cool. So I wanted to share it with the wider community so yeah. … Well obviously teachers need to be careful of what they share, so I tend to take photos of kids work and not kids. (T4)

Boundaries as lines of contact Trends and innovations in practice An image of the profession (as evidence-based) An image of the professional character

Boundaries as lines of contact Rich learning opportunities Creative policy enactment Reconfiguration of learning spaces

Exploring intersecting boundaries

Boundaries of imagination “It assumes a deficit on the part of the children so that they couldn’t imagine these things anyway? … Also I think it’s that idea of making it more fun, which the trench seems to be, is quite distasteful... the idea that you would have to do something like that to get children to emotionally engage … Millions of people died. And she’s got a fun trench in the corner. “So there’s a whole series of moral issues to do with this thing that aren’t engaged with and cause people to do things where they think they’re being creative and imaginative in good ways when in fact they may be doing something very bad... we’re going to make it as easy as possible to connect with it, but what are you connecting to? You’re connecting with a fantasy.”

Boundaries of engagement “It assumes a deficit on the part of the children so that they couldn’t imagine these things anyway? … Also I think it’s that idea of making it more fun, which the trench seems to be, is quite distasteful... the idea that you would have to do something like that to get children to emotionally engage … Millions of people died. And she’s got a fun trench in the corner. “So there’s a whole series of moral issues to do with this thing that aren’t engaged with and cause people to do things where they think they’re being creative and imaginative in good ways when in fact they may be doing something very bad... we’re going to make it as easy as possible to connect with it, but what are you connecting to? You’re connecting with a fantasy.”

Boundaries of freedom “There’s effort to do something, and then there’s effort to create something that other people can see and see you’re doing something … because there’s such a high degree of surveillance in schools... “I think you need to make sure that they don’t go in completely naively thinking they’re free to do whatever they like. That would be doing them a disservice. What I try to encourage them to think is that these are things they can improvise with. Because unless you’ve stuck a senior colleague or a camera in your room, you still have more freedom than you might think you do. And you certainly have the freedom to NOT do this sort of thing. ”

Student teachers’ responses ST3: I think it’s fab. I would love to do it. ST4: that must of taken hours … [doubtfully] I think it’s a bit, an enormous effort, I suppose for an open day …

Stuffing sandbags? ST6: … That looks like something the kids would help make, maybe? ST3: The children’s involvement? Limited I would say, like none of it looks like it was particularly done by children, not even like the writing. ST4: … I suppose she could have got them involved stuffing the sacks. But that’s about it.

Highlighting a project ST3: Well it’s probably to highlight a project… that’s how displays in primary work though … “This is our new project, so we’ve got this display and we’re going to add to it.” ST4: Oh yeah, that’s true, that maybe makes it better. I never thought that.

The naughty corner? ST6: But I don’t think it would be able to stay there long. That’s a lot of space to take up in a classroom … ST3: It would have to have a function … it doesn’t necessarily have a function, unless you’re like [sarcastically] “Let’s go to the trench.” … ST5: You can’t have all the kids in there at once. ST4: You could send a couple of kids to the trench, like you know if they’re really bad, [puts on angry voice] “Go to the trench!” … ST5: And … do you let them play in it? I mean like to what extent do you want kids to be playing in the trench? … ST3: … So there’s a lot of lines that need to then be drawn for that activity, probably … ST6: She says my mini trench as well, and not like the kids’ trench of the kids’ room – you can tell a lot from that.

Unrecognised boundaries

Images @thelovelymaeve Thanks, questions, comments?