"Get ready with me for the first day of school!" 

"Come spend a day in my classroom with me!"

"What I wore to school this week!"

If you're a teacher with a TikTok, you've probably seen a few videos that begin with one of the above statements on your FYP. TikTok can be a fun, creative way for teachers to connect with one another, share resources and strategies, learn from one another, and even vent frustrations. There comes a point, however, when the content teacher's post can become dangerous for them and their students. In recent months, members of the TikTok community have begun speaking out against teachers who post their students on their personal TikTok accounts. A lot of this discussion is centered around the monetization of these videos, which means teachers could be exploiting their students for likes, comments, and views. Creator @caroline_easom mentions a point for consideration - "a lot of times with these teacher videos it's not necessarily privacy that's being jeopardized, it's the education." It's true that in order to create this content, teachers have to take time away from instruction to film, and when students are actively involved in the video, this means their learning time is heavily disrupted. The deeper ethical concern is the safety and privacy of students in these situations. With today's technology, anyone can find the exact locations of students, their names, and more personal information just from a 10 second clip of them dancing in their classroom. 

Educators are expected to familiarize themselves with national, state, and district laws regarding student data privacy. If you haven't, you may be putting yourself at risk for lawsuit. Cara Hagen shares important information regarding data privacy laws in the blog Keep it Safe; Keep it Private, linked below. Familairzing yourself with these laws, and following them, is the best way to ensure your students' personal information and data stays private and secure. While you're at it, follow these 3 tips for maintaining a respectable, professional online presence: 

1. Never post your students online. It's really that simple. Don't take students' photos or videos without parental consent, and never post this content to your personal social media accounts. Even if you have a school-focused social media page where you share the learning activities happening in your school/classroom, it's a good idea to provide parents with a photography/videography consent form, to ensure you are respecting their parental rights to keep their child off the internet. 

2. Read before clicking "I Agree". Those privacy statements hold vital information regarding how a website manages and uses your data. This is especially important when you are considering new edtech programs to use with students - read the entire privacy statement, or have your district's technology department review the program for you, to ensure it upholds your district's standards for data protection. 

3. Prioritize your own digital footprint. You never truly know who will see what you post online. As I read in Case Study 2, an educator's personal social media posts may come back to bite them professionally. Never post anything online that you wouldn't want your principal, or even superintendent, seeing. Always remember that once it's been online, it never truly disappears. 

Image via: Barclay, N. (2022)., I tried replacing google with tiktok, and it worked better than I thought., The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/23365101/tiktok-search-google-replacement