Well, now there are some new guidelines that the Department of Education is putting out there to make sure our teachers use these social media sites in a constructive way. So Department of Education, yes, they put these out instructions for teachers. And let's face it, I think it's a little strange if a teacher and a student, you know, our friends on Facebook are not strange, but it sets up conditions that, I don't know, something unprofessional could happen. We brought in two experts, Lisa Fleischer. She covers education for the Wall Street Journal. She is all over the story and Christesi is social media expert. Welcome to the show. What did the Department of Education do yesterday? Lisa. So Department of Education actually on Monday told principals, here are the guidelines for what teachers shouldn't do on any social media sites, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, anything like that. And they're trying to say, look, there's personal and there's professional. Don't friend your students on Facebook on your personal accounts. If you want to set up a separate one that's a professional account, you know, where you don't post pictures of a bachelor party, for example, you know, that's a good idea. That's okay. You can use this and get permission from your principal. You know, show that there's a clear educational reason for you to use this. But they definitely don't want teachers going ahead and just snooping around on students, Facebook pages, you know, on their own. They don't want parents and teachers to be friends. That sort of thing. Of course, are your social media expert in this work? I think it could. I think it's interesting that they're actually putting forth parameters. So it means that they're aware of it. It means that there's a dialogue. There's a conversation, which is always going to be healthy. However, I think it's really important that the teachers are educated about the matter in which they can have these types of conversations. Because when there are gray areas, parents get concerned if there are notifications that a parent can sign off and say, it's okay for the teacher and my child to have this conversation. It's good because you can see that it's almost there's a potential for a set up for a really big flare up. And the potential is still there and the situation is still gray, Lisa, because these are recommendations. These are advisory. It's still legal or it's not against policy to friend a student on Facebook if you are their teacher. Correct? Right. The department sort of puts this as these are strong recommendations and the way that they're worded, the way that they're written. It almost seems like it's absolutely necessary. But just remember, Greg, that there's also, you know, other regulations about bad behavior. I mean, as a department put this, they're sort of like, look, if it's okay in the classroom, it's okay online. I mean, if you wouldn't do something in the classroom, you shouldn't do it online. Are they going to train these teachers? This is it. They're basically... Yeah, they're going to have a couple of sessions in May and June and July, I think, in terms of showing what are the best ways. We're some of the great ways that people do use Facebook's Twitter or other social media accounts. Let me just ask you this. Why did they just make it mandatory? Make it mandatory? No contact on private Facebook pages between teachers and students. Personal, professional period. No. That's a good question. I'm actually not sure why they didn't just pass rules to this panel for education policy. I would assume that the reason why they're not doing it is just because so ubiquitous. I mean, we have 800 million people on Facebook and I think that there's still that potential for people to cross the line. So instead of saying, don't do it at all, they realize, probably, that if they say, don't do it at all, they're going to have lots of violations right out of the gate. You know, the problem with social media is about socializing, okay? And that's it. Now, a lot of these schools have their own website where the teachers and the kids can correspond with one another in a safe way to talk about homework, that kind of stuff. Why do you need to have your teacher Facebook you or you Facebook you teach him right? My son has done that and you know what? He'll go, mom, look at this picture of someone. So it's not good. I think there are also people react to hearing Facebook because they realize there are photographs of them at parties and doing social activities. There are other social networks that could potentially help facilitate conversations. LinkedIn is a business environment. So there are different ways that they could facilitate the conversation that perhaps maybe if people do get so concerned about Facebook that might be the next iteration of what's happening. Lisa, how are these guidelines going down with teachers with students? Are they striking their shoulders? Are they joking? What's the reaction? Also, principals and teachers I've spoken with so far have sort of a mixed reaction. I mean, a lot of the most, the consensus is this is the Department of Education sort of trying to protect itself against any problems. You know, covering themselves. Yeah, covering themselves a little bit. But you know, there are teachers who I've talked to who said, you know what this actually makes a lot of sense. I don't want to have students and parents and whatnot being on my personal Facebook page. This helps me out a bit. Some principals think it's a bit much work for them because they're required to monitor basically what's going on on their teachers Facebook pages or any social media sites, any blogs, any comments that people leave. But you know, there are some teachers who say there's actually really great uses for me to be friends with students on Facebook, for example. Because these teachers care about the whole student in terms of their school and emotional growth. No, some teachers do. Teachers do. I agree. So one teacher I spoke with yesterday, I actually had a really good example. He teaches a class that's more like a health class or like a family life class. And if he sees a picture, let's say, of a 16 year old girl that's pretty inappropriate on Facebook, he uses that as sort of a teachable moment in classes. Do you realize that the public, this is out there, this is the image that you're presenting to the world. And certainly they could create a curriculum that says you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that. But unless it actually affects that student, unless it's like they know about themselves, they're probably not going to pay attention. Mr. Fries, thank you very much for your welcome. What's the name of your media company? It's called Silverback Social. And what do you do there exactly? I actually work with large brands and how to engage in social media with individuals on how to have their appropriate social media presence and small businesses getting them started in social media. Are you the boss? I am the CEO. Oh, it's awesome. Wow. You're monitoring your people's Facebook pages and Twitter accounts? You know, it's interesting. Yes, and I think it's sort of the way this human nature now, right? Like we use it to, you know, brands do it to peak behind the curtain about their consumer to gather data to learn about them a little bit more. It's just the nature of all that we live in right now. Big brother is watching. Yeah, but big brother is a private citizen, you know, with a big kital. It's not like George Orwell said.