I chose to search Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, and Delicious to search their Privacy and Terms of Service information.  This information was easily accessible and easy to find.  Even though these are four different types of Social Media, there terms were very similar.  Only Fickr sent me to their parent company, Yahoo, for their information. I found this a little questionable because it was hard to find answers that were pertinent to Flickr.

What surprised me was that all the sites said that the content posted by the user was the users property but the sites state that  “you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with” the site.  I was also surprised that all the sites stated they would give your information to “trusted third party” groups.  The fact that they use your personal information to direct advertising, or related sites, to your “content” was something that was acknowledged by all Terms Of Service.  Delicious was a site that I only recently found.  I liked that the site collect sand share bookmarks that interest you.

I use Facebook regularly and I know that Facebook can use anything I post, until I delete me account.  I really don’t think my attitude with Facebook and Twitter has changed after reading the Terms.  I am an adult and I am responsible for my comments and actions.  I would not and do not put anything on Facebook that I wouldn’t want anyone to read.  Granted I have the super Privacy settings to maintain my privacy.  Even though you have privacy settings there really is no privacy.  You can control the privacy to a point.

In education I can see many implications.  The most obvious one is the age of the students.  I teach high school and many of my students use Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr.  If we are going to use these tools in education we have to set strict policies of usage.  These are all useful tools but as always it is how they are used that is the problem.  It is not the technology that is the problem it is how the technology is used.  I personally think that a teacher should not share their personal accounts with their students.  I do not see a problem with having a school or course account set up and using it as a way to connect with your students or share important information about your course or class.