Today our district received an email from one of our tech guys warning us that if we use Twitter, to beware of bots and scammers, phishers and marketers. Now, I know I am looking at this from my narrow vantage-point and not everyone in the district uses these emerging technologies like I do and I am not proclaiming to be an expert by any stretch of the imagination. But if the only emails / guidance we get from our tech department is “the sky is falling”, people are going to stop attempting to use these new and interesting pieces of technology and change their teaching. We need to get on the same page, and we aren’t. We need to have a real conversation about our technology and we aren’t.
I replied to that email essentially saying that the folks who fall for such scams are basically greedy fools. They are the same ones that fell for scams back in the day when the US Post Office used to deliver actual letters from Nigerian princes.
You make an excellent point about scaring folks away from great resources. You can get struck by lightening using a telephone and blood poisoning from paper cuts too. Guess we should stay away from phones and books.