When Professors Create Social Networks for Classes, Some Students See a 'Creepy Treehouse'
A growing number of professors are experimenting with Facebook, Twitter, and other social-networking tools for their courses, but some students greet an invitation to join professors’ personal networks with horror, seeing faculty members as intruders in their private online spaces. Recognizing that, some professors have coined the term “creepy treehouse” to describe technological innovations by faculty members that make students’ skin crawl.
Jared Stein, director of instructional-design services at Utah Valley University, offered a clear definition of the term on his blog earlier this year. “Though such systems may be seen as innovative or problem-solving to the institution, they may repulse some users who see them as infringement on the sanctity of their peer groups, or as having the potential for institutional violations of their privacy, liberty, ownership, or creativity,” Mr. Stein wrote.
Alec Couros, an assistant professor of education at the University of Regina, in Canada, is coordinator of the education school’s information and communication technologies program. He says that there are productive — and non-creepy — ways for professors to use social-networking technologies, but that the best approach is to create online forums that students want to join, rather than forcing participation. “There’s a middle space I think you can find with students,” he says. —Jeffrey R. Young
-->Posted on Monday August 18, 2008 Permalink
Comments
It is sensible and even wonderful and compelling for professors to use social networking in course contexts. As a management instructor, I require all of my students to join LinkedIn and have exercises using the advanced search utility and the Questions/Answers utility that require them to use LinkedIn in a practical way.
If a student uses Facebook to display drunken doings etc., it is possible forthem to create a second profile that can be used in a course and not share the more indulgent one. However, here in New York, I find that students do not seem to care about me connecting to them via Facebook. I imagine they realize that I have more pressuring agendas than scrutinizing the changes in their relationship status (which can happen several times in a day) or that no one signed up to join them at their birthday party. I confess my musing over how “sweet” is deemed cooler than “cool” and other millennial learner locutions.
I also require students to join Second Life (2L) where I have a large educational facility (financed by the Teaching and Learning Center of my university) on an island I own. Having students create avatars and network in a virtual world requires a tad more instructor orchestration than Facebook or LinkedIn do. I explain that searching Google for the phrases “second life” and “avatar’s name” with the word “entrepreneur” we enable them to get the requisite information to contact 2L entrepreneurs to interview them about their virtual world businesses. (Hundreds of millions of dollars of e-commerce occur annually in 2L).
— Charles Wankel Aug 18, 04:33 PM #
Programs should consider creating school specific networks for students, profs, and admins to collaborate. These types of networks not only keep school life and play life separate, they also have security in place to exclude anyone that doesn’t belong.
— Ben Aug 18, 04:52 PM #
It seems if students are finding use of online sites for class and personal use as creepy we have failed as a system in our integration of what happens in the courseroom with what can happen in the real world… blurring the distinctions between class and ‘life’ might just be the dose of needed maturity for some students and much needed linking between school and work and life that students need.
Of course, an opt-out/alternative is always a wise option for any software/web activity in a course. Choice and customization rule in today’s market… and so should it in the courseroom, which provides a fee-based service.
— LM Aug 18, 09:40 PM #
I guess it is not only the professor. The academic librarians too are trying the similar way to reach out the students with more resources. And, we are also facing the same problem. But, there are some interesting stories where such channels do works and students keep returning back for more aid and resources.
— Hazman Aziz Aug 19, 02:46 AM #
Hey Facebook is owned by Rupert Murdock!
— mathew Aug 19, 06:58 AM #
All social networking – online and even
— Leave MeAlone Aug 19, 07:27 AM #
Although students today have more resources available in order to become better scholars, and especially socially inept, they are more sheltered and immature than what you would expect of pre-teens. Anything outside of their little circle is creepy; although, looking at their preferred activities, there is a contradiction.
— HCAJR Aug 19, 08:05 AM #
This is not a surprise… how much did we like it when our parents visited our clubhouse?? Apt term, “creepy treehouse”! Students interpret our presence in “their” medium as us crashing in their party. Personally, I reject most of my students requests to become their “friend” in facebook. I have an account. And I have a memory, too. I simply can’t forget the awful stuff I have seen about them and what their behavior says about their character when I have to write a recommendation. So I use the same rule I applied when I lived in Party College Town USA: I never frequented the restaurants or bars with MY friends there so I would avoid seeing underaged students doing things they should not be doing.
— DrFunZ Aug 19, 08:59 AM #
MySpace is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Facebook is owned by its creators.
— W Aug 19, 09:10 AM #
#1: Well, well, Mr. Wanker, you epitomize what this story is about—instructors getting WAY too into the technology. Let’s not forget that the millions of dollars channeled into Second Life is REAL money paid by REAL people for fictional businesses. How’s this for crazy: teach students about management within the framework of REAL, operating businesses. Jeez, this social networking stuff is so narcissistic. Listen, Wanker, your own narcissistic tendencies are feeding themselves with this activity. I like the “creepy treehouse” label—it fits well.
— Kurok of the Hill People Aug 19, 09:24 AM #
It looks to me like this article might provide just another excuse for faculty members to distance themselves from valuable online technologies, remaining blissfully ignorant of the educational power of these tools. I am using Ning.com for my classes this semester – it has nothing to do with personal lives; it is all about how we communicate in our collective LEARNING effort as a class – much like what we might do in a classroom but far more powerful precisely because it is online, 24/7, and directly connected to the rich resources of the Internet itself. If you ask me, the nightmarish monotony of the Desire2Learn so-called discussion board (the official tool of my school) is what is creepy – not the use of great social networking software such as Ning.com.
— Laura Gibbs Aug 19, 09:30 AM #
I have been using Facebook for a year to network with some of my students, particularly my graduate students. I tell them I will not “friend” them, because that just feels creepy to me, but if they request me, I will be happy to engage in professional networking with them. Seven out of eleven are now my friends as well as my advisees.
I am amused by the relationship updates and the amount I now know about their personal lives, but I also find it helps me to know that one of my most promising graduate students is going through a break-up and carrying on beautifully despite the pain, and that we can talk about it briefly, I can offer support, and then we can get back to work.
We have discussed how the boundaries between creative work and personal life are already so blurred that we need a certain degree of consciousness about being in the muddle, we need to recognize that ALL of our public actions are indeed, public, and all is archived. On some levels this allows us all to recognize that we are indeed responsible for our public behavior. Like a tattoo, it all sticks.
At the same time, I am now pondering whether to encourage my undergraduate students to work with me on Facebook; fewer of them have “friended” me and that is OK. But I find Facebook to be more versatile and user-friendly than the Blackboard system my university is experimenting with, and it works better than the course reflector email list I have yet to make functional. I think of a Facebook group as a metaphoric living room, where anyone can show up and share an idea, a video clip, questions, etc. and others will weigh in in their own time. This leaves the possibility that the classroom time can be spent in real-time collaboration, putting those random notions into action.
Such a perspective reduces the “creepy” factor, but I am still going to run it by the students first.
— KarenDC Aug 19, 09:57 AM #
How can you tell if a system or application is a creepy treehouse? One sign might be that students won’t use it—certainly not of their own accord, and especially if there is a more compelling, more authentic alternative. To this end I think the real culprits of creep in this discussion are those who use technology artificially—indeed, inauthentically. From corporate vendors who want cashflow from the latest trends or buzzwords, to IT admins who think social networks would be great if they could be controlled. And lastly the well-meaning misapplication of social network technology by the teacher. The question to consider is, of what educational use is a tool like Facebook in the academic setting? How does using it help the instructor meet goals or objectives?
Scrutinizing creepy-treehouse-ness is not an excuse to blank condemn, and thus escape from, technology in the classroom. Compare the educational application of Facebook to something like del.icio.us, or blogs. Let’s use technology in education for making learning better and easier: richer, broader, deeper, more personalized, faster, more efficent. But let’s not use technology to merely “bacon-up the tofu”, as my colleague colorfully puts it.
— Jared Stein Aug 19, 10:02 AM #
We are trying to create a more appropriate social-network on www.AcademiaConnect.org
— Macos Aug 19, 10:12 AM #
Kudos to Jared Stein for mentioning del.icio.us – along with Ning.com (which combines blogging and discussion boards), del.icio.us is one of the tools that has offered the biggest boost to the effectiveness of my teaching – instead of static lists of outdated, even dead links which so many faculty put up for their classes, del.icio.us allows you to develop both individual and shared resource archives, with easy tools for managing link rot, etc. etc. The del.icio.us service is a powerful way to share and collaborate online – and (IMHO) it is sadly underutilized by the academic community, out of a lack of awareness more than anything else.
— Laura Gibbs Aug 19, 10:19 AM #
I still wonder if people are actually asking students whether they think this is a real issue. It seems like most stories I hear from actual real world examples seems to be that students don’t really care. Comments # 8 and 12 show that students actually will seek out instructors to be their friends. A teacher friend of mine set up a MySpace account, and will only accept friend requests initiated by students. I kid you not, his MySpace Wall is filled with comments that basically say “this is so cool that you are on here!”
If you look at UrbanDictionary.com, “creepy treehouse” has been on there since April and only has 5 ratings. Compare that with “thumb lashing”, added August 18th, with over a 1000 ratings. Is this something that is really on the minds of students? I don’t see that much evidence for that. Of course, if we keep publishing articles and blog posts on this term, it might just become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I thought comment #10 above was a serious post, until I read the name. Funny.
— Matt Crosslin Aug 19, 10:44 AM #
I teach a course in Internet Communications and introduce many Web 2.0 tools (zotero, del.ico.us,blogs, social bookmarks, twitter, google docs, wikis, ning, rss, dig, photo and video share, etc. ) in the context of doing academic work – collaborative projects, research, evaluations, papers and the like. My students report that mastering these tools has really improved their academic productivity.
When I first encountered the term “creepy treehouse’ I understood it to mean when organizations used WEB 2.0 technologies to enforce hierarchy. I’m currently involved the design and launch of the blogging network at my university and I have been really careful to make sure that it embraces the spirit of web 2.0 and is both open and customizable but also protects the privacy and intellectual property of the blog owners.
In my opinion, there are two contra forces exerting influence on the internet – corporate monopolies – a la Microsoft and open community. If these two are mixed and matched they can create creepy environments.
— Eileen McMahon Aug 19, 10:44 AM #
I agree with Jared Stein the only reason for using a social network in a academic setting is when it enhances the learning experience. I also find that if I am forced to join a network Like linkedin for a class I am less likely to use that in my professional life; because many of those connections are no longer authentic and it ruins the experience. This is because many of the students that I have networked with in my course do not seem to work as professionals and I reserve my networks for professionals, so these experiences in a classroom can actually effect a student’s professional network in a negative way. Which as educators is something to be avoided.
— Tyrel Kelsey Aug 19, 11:02 AM #
Creepy? Just remember that the Internet was not supposed to be used for any commercial purpose until two lawyers used it to promote their legal practice back in the ’90s. You see what’s happened since then; all it took was someone taking that first step. Same thing will happen with social networks and their technology in an academic setting. Strategy for using the tools we call social networks will evolve as fast as those first commercial websites evolved into the eBay and Amazon of today. For those of you who are paying attention, you’re doing the right thing no matter what your viewpoint is today.
— Joe S Aug 19, 11:19 AM #
As a recent graduate and one that worked with many students as a mentor and advisor – this article is somewhat pointless because all things in school depend on each individual student as to how it will be received. Networking where students most frequent is great for helping students who want to reach more into their major (I have many friends who have professors on their list, and together they frequent readings, seminars, and other culturally significant events) or build connections for their future careers. I think if anything there isn’t enough opportunity often provided by the college itself to allow for professors and students to create a mentoring/networking bond. At my college, the writing department was desperate to reach out to students on campus but that is hard when you have a commuter campus with many students traveling distances up to 2 hours away at times. Online connections are often the only way to reach them. But of course, there are going to be students who feel they have something to hide and are creeped out by the suggestion. Professors and students who are both adults, should just use their best judgment from their time together in class and decide whether the connection is a good fit for them. If it isn’t, then they should communicate on to what is better. Simple as that.
I was supposed to phone many of my students and visit with them one-on-one, even as a peer who was also a college student and only a few years older – this creeped many of my mentees out and infact, it somewhat creeped me out, but it also just didn’t work with our schedules. Many of us did much better communicating through facebook groups, myspace messages, and e-mails. Some of the students never responded online and only participated in person. This isn’t rocket science, people feel differently about different things. This is a good way to help students to start making adult decisions about their interactions and reputation online and offline, something they will have to face in the work world eventually.
Honestly, I don’t think most students really care either way and it is just another annoying task to either ignore or be forced to do – as are many things we are given a “choice” to do in college.When Professors Create Social Networks for Classes, Some Students See a 'Creepy Treehouse'
A growing number of professors are experimenting with Facebook, Twitter, and other social-networking tools for their courses, but some students greet an invitation to join professors’ personal networks with horror, seeing faculty members as intruders in their private online spaces. Recognizing that, some professors have coined the term “creepy treehouse” to describe technological innovations by faculty members that make students’ skin crawl.
Jared Stein, director of instructional-design services at Utah Valley University, offered a clear definition of the term on his blog earlier this year. “Though such systems may be seen as innovative or problem-solving to the institution, they may repulse some users who see them as infringement on the sanctity of their peer groups, or as having the potential for institutional violations of their privacy, liberty, ownership, or creativity,” Mr. Stein wrote.
Alec Couros, an assistant professor of education at the University of Regina, in Canada, is coordinator of the education school’s information and communication technologies program. He says that there are productive — and non-creepy — ways for professors to use social-networking technologies, but that the best approach is to create online forums that students want to join, rather than forcing participation. “There’s a middle space I think you can find with students,” he says. —Jeffrey R. Young
-->Posted on Monday August 18, 2008 Permalink
Comments
It is sensible and even wonderful and compelling for professors to use social networking in course contexts. As a management instructor, I require all of my students to join LinkedIn and have exercises using the advanced search utility and the Questions/Answers utility that require them to use LinkedIn in a practical way.
If a student uses Facebook to display drunken doings etc., it is possible forthem to create a second profile that can be used in a course and not share the more indulgent one. However, here in New York, I find that students do not seem to care about me connecting to them via Facebook. I imagine they realize that I have more pressuring agendas than scrutinizing the changes in their relationship status (which can happen several times in a day) or that no one signed up to join them at their birthday party. I confess my musing over how “sweet” is deemed cooler than “cool” and other millennial learner locutions.
I also require students to join Second Life (2L) where I have a large educational facility (financed by the Teaching and Learning Center of my university) on an island I own. Having students create avatars and network in a virtual world requires a tad more instructor orchestration than Facebook or LinkedIn do. I explain that searching Google for the phrases “second life” and “avatar’s name” with the word “entrepreneur” we enable them to get the requisite information to contact 2L entrepreneurs to interview them about their virtual world businesses. (Hundreds of millions of dollars of e-commerce occur annually in 2L).
— Charles Wankel Aug 18, 04:33 PM #
Programs should consider creating school specific networks for students, profs, and admins to collaborate. These types of networks not only keep school life and play life separate, they also have security in place to exclude anyone that doesn’t belong.
— Ben Aug 18, 04:52 PM #
It seems if students are finding use of online sites for class and personal use as creepy we have failed as a system in our integration of what happens in the courseroom with what can happen in the real world… blurring the distinctions between class and ‘life’ might just be the dose of needed maturity for some students and much needed linking between school and work and life that students need.
Of course, an opt-out/alternative is always a wise option for any software/web activity in a course. Choice and customization rule in today’s market… and so should it in the courseroom, which provides a fee-based service.
— LM Aug 18, 09:40 PM #
I guess it is not only the professor. The academic librarians too are trying the similar way to reach out the students with more resources. And, we are also facing the same problem. But, there are some interesting stories where such channels do works and students keep returning back for more aid and resources.
— Hazman Aziz Aug 19, 02:46 AM #
Hey Facebook is owned by Rupert Murdock!
— mathew Aug 19, 06:58 AM #
All social networking – online and even
— Leave MeAlone Aug 19, 07:27 AM #
Although students today have more resources available in order to become better scholars, and especially socially inept, they are more sheltered and immature than what you would expect of pre-teens. Anything outside of their little circle is creepy; although, looking at their preferred activities, there is a contradiction.
— HCAJR Aug 19, 08:05 AM #
This is not a surprise… how much did we like it when our parents visited our clubhouse?? Apt term, “creepy treehouse”! Students interpret our presence in “their” medium as us crashing in their party. Personally, I reject most of my students requests to become their “friend” in facebook. I have an account. And I have a memory, too. I simply can’t forget the awful stuff I have seen about them and what their behavior says about their character when I have to write a recommendation. So I use the same rule I applied when I lived in Party College Town USA: I never frequented the restaurants or bars with MY friends there so I would avoid seeing underaged students doing things they should not be doing.
— DrFunZ Aug 19, 08:59 AM #
MySpace is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Facebook is owned by its creators.
— W Aug 19, 09:10 AM #
#1: Well, well, Mr. Wanker, you epitomize what this story is about—instructors getting WAY too into the technology. Let’s not forget that the millions of dollars channeled into Second Life is REAL money paid by REAL people for fictional businesses. How’s this for crazy: teach students about management within the framework of REAL, operating businesses. Jeez, this social networking stuff is so narcissistic. Listen, Wanker, your own narcissistic tendencies are feeding themselves with this activity. I like the “creepy treehouse” label—it fits well.
— Kurok of the Hill People Aug 19, 09:24 AM #
It looks to me like this article might provide just another excuse for faculty members to distance themselves from valuable online technologies, remaining blissfully ignorant of the educational power of these tools. I am using Ning.com for my classes this semester – it has nothing to do with personal lives; it is all about how we communicate in our collective LEARNING effort as a class – much like what we might do in a classroom but far more powerful precisely because it is online, 24/7, and directly connected to the rich resources of the Internet itself. If you ask me, the nightmarish monotony of the Desire2Learn so-called discussion board (the official tool of my school) is what is creepy – not the use of great social networking software such as Ning.com.
— Laura Gibbs Aug 19, 09:30 AM #
I have been using Facebook for a year to network with some of my students, particularly my graduate students. I tell them I will not “friend” them, because that just feels creepy to me, but if they request me, I will be happy to engage in professional networking with them. Seven out of eleven are now my friends as well as my advisees.
I am amused by the relationship updates and the amount I now know about their personal lives, but I also find it helps me to know that one of my most promising graduate students is going through a break-up and carrying on beautifully despite the pain, and that we can talk about it briefly, I can offer support, and then we can get back to work.
We have discussed how the boundaries between creative work and personal life are already so blurred that we need a certain degree of consciousness about being in the muddle, we need to recognize that ALL of our public actions are indeed, public, and all is archived. On some levels this allows us all to recognize that we are indeed responsible for our public behavior. Like a tattoo, it all sticks.
At the same time, I am now pondering whether to encourage my undergraduate students to work with me on Facebook; fewer of them have “friended” me and that is OK. But I find Facebook to be more versatile and user-friendly than the Blackboard system my university is experimenting with, and it works better than the course reflector email list I have yet to make functional. I think of a Facebook group as a metaphoric living room, where anyone can show up and share an idea, a video clip, questions, etc. and others will weigh in in their own time. This leaves the possibility that the classroom time can be spent in real-time collaboration, putting those random notions into action.
Such a perspective reduces the “creepy” factor, but I am still going to run it by the students first.
— KarenDC Aug 19, 09:57 AM #
How can you tell if a system or application is a creepy treehouse? One sign might be that students won’t use it—certainly not of their own accord, and especially if there is a more compelling, more authentic alternative. To this end I think the real culprits of creep in this discussion are those who use technology artificially—indeed, inauthentically. From corporate vendors who want cashflow from the latest trends or buzzwords, to IT admins who think social networks would be great if they could be controlled. And lastly the well-meaning misapplication of social network technology by the teacher. The question to consider is, of what educational use is a tool like Facebook in the academic setting? How does using it help the instructor meet goals or objectives?
Scrutinizing creepy-treehouse-ness is not an excuse to blank condemn, and thus escape from, technology in the classroom. Compare the educational application of Facebook to something like del.icio.us, or blogs. Let’s use technology in education for making learning better and easier: richer, broader, deeper, more personalized, faster, more efficent. But let’s not use technology to merely “bacon-up the tofu”, as my colleague colorfully puts it.
— Jared Stein Aug 19, 10:02 AM #
We are trying to create a more appropriate social-network on www.AcademiaConnect.org
— Macos Aug 19, 10:12 AM #
Kudos to Jared Stein for mentioning del.icio.us – along with Ning.com (which combines blogging and discussion boards), del.icio.us is one of the tools that has offered the biggest boost to the effectiveness of my teaching – instead of static lists of outdated, even dead links which so many faculty put up for their classes, del.icio.us allows you to develop both individual and shared resource archives, with easy tools for managing link rot, etc. etc. The del.icio.us service is a powerful way to share and collaborate online – and (IMHO) it is sadly underutilized by the academic community, out of a lack of awareness more than anything else.
— Laura Gibbs Aug 19, 10:19 AM #
I still wonder if people are actually asking students whether they think this is a real issue. It seems like most stories I hear from actual real world examples seems to be that students don’t really care. Comments # 8 and 12 show that students actually will seek out instructors to be their friends. A teacher friend of mine set up a MySpace account, and will only accept friend requests initiated by students. I kid you not, his MySpace Wall is filled with comments that basically say “this is so cool that you are on here!”
If you look at UrbanDictionary.com, “creepy treehouse” has been on there since April and only has 5 ratings. Compare that with “thumb lashing”, added August 18th, with over a 1000 ratings. Is this something that is really on the minds of students? I don’t see that much evidence for that. Of course, if we keep publishing articles and blog posts on this term, it might just become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I thought comment #10 above was a serious post, until I read the name. Funny.
— Matt Crosslin Aug 19, 10:44 AM #
I teach a course in Internet Communications and introduce many Web 2.0 tools (zotero, del.ico.us,blogs, social bookmarks, twitter, google docs, wikis, ning, rss, dig, photo and video share, etc. ) in the context of doing academic work – collaborative projects, research, evaluations, papers and the like. My students report that mastering these tools has really improved their academic productivity.
When I first encountered the term “creepy treehouse’ I understood it to mean when organizations used WEB 2.0 technologies to enforce hierarchy. I’m currently involved the design and launch of the blogging network at my university and I have been really careful to make sure that it embraces the spirit of web 2.0 and is both open and customizable but also protects the privacy and intellectual property of the blog owners.
In my opinion, there are two contra forces exerting influence on the internet – corporate monopolies – a la Microsoft and open community. If these two are mixed and matched they can create creepy environments.
— Eileen McMahon Aug 19, 10:44 AM #
I agree with Jared Stein the only reason for using a social network in a academic setting is when it enhances the learning experience. I also find that if I am forced to join a network Like linkedin for a class I am less likely to use that in my professional life; because many of those connections are no longer authentic and it ruins the experience. This is because many of the students that I have networked with in my course do not seem to work as professionals and I reserve my networks for professionals, so these experiences in a classroom can actually effect a student’s professional network in a negative way. Which as educators is something to be avoided.
— Tyrel Kelsey Aug 19, 11:02 AM #
Creepy? Just remember that the Internet was not supposed to be used for any commercial purpose until two lawyers used it to promote their legal practice back in the ’90s. You see what’s happened since then; all it took was someone taking that first step. Same thing will happen with social networks and their technology in an academic setting. Strategy for using the tools we call social networks will evolve as fast as those first commercial websites evolved into the eBay and Amazon of today. For those of you who are paying attention, you’re doing the right thing no matter what your viewpoint is today.
— Joe S Aug 19, 11:19 AM #
As a recent graduate and one that worked with many students as a mentor and advisor – this article is somewhat pointless because all things in school depend on each individual student as to how it will be received. Networking where students most frequent is great for helping students who want to reach more into their major (I have many friends who have professors on their list, and together they frequent readings, seminars, and other culturally significant events) or build connections for their future careers. I think if anything there isn’t enough opportunity often provided by the college itself to allow for professors and students to create a mentoring/networking bond. At my college, the writing department was desperate to reach out to students on campus but that is hard when you have a commuter campus with many students traveling distances up to 2 hours away at times. Online connections are often the only way to reach them. But of course, there are going to be students who feel they have something to hide and are creeped out by the suggestion. Professors and students who are both adults, should just use their best judgment from their time together in class and decide whether the connection is a good fit for them. If it isn’t, then they should communicate on to what is better. Simple as that.
I was supposed to phone many of my students and visit with them one-on-one, even as a peer who was also a college student and only a few years older – this creeped many of my mentees out and infact, it somewhat creeped me out, but it also just didn’t work with our schedules. Many of us did much better communicating through facebook groups, myspace messages, and e-mails. Some of the students never responded online and only participated in person. This isn’t rocket science, people feel differently about different things. This is a good way to help students to start making adult decisions about their interactions and reputation online and offline, something they will have to face in the work world eventually.
Honestly, I don’t think most students really care either way and it is just another annoying task to either ignore or be forced to do – as are many things we are given a “choice” to do in college.
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