Should teachers be "Friends" with their students?

A hot debate that has entered the world of teaching is over whether or not teachers should be "friends" with their students on social networking sites, such as Facebook.  I went to breakfast this morning with a teacher at my school who brought up this issue and felt that teachers should separate their personal lives from their professional lives.  She said that she has heard about many cases at our school where teachers and students have been "friends" on facebook and the teachers have shared too much with the students.  Such examples of sharing too much could include pictures, status updates, and wall posts.  As we began to discuss Facebook in more depth, the issue over who should regulate teacher use was brought up.  Should teachers get to decide who they are friends with on facebook, or should the school/district step in and set up regulations for social networking relationships between teachers and students?  I know some districts have set regulations for social network uses, however, this has not spread to all districts, including mine.

I know at the school I taught at, there are many teachers who are friends with their students on Facebook.  Some teachers tell their students that they will only be friends with them once they graduate, and others will accept current students' friend requests.  This is a very interesting topic to me because many of my students continually asked if I had a facebook and wanted to be friends.  Not only did I change all my privacy settings so that I am unsearchable on Facebook, I will not accept a students' friend request, and have made this very clear to my students.  Although I am careful about what information and pictures I share on Facebook because I am friends with family and colleagues, I am not comfortable being "friends" with my students.  I tell my students that they can email me if they need to contact me, and I do check my email often.

While personal Facebook pages should be kept pages in my opinion, it would be interesting and possibly effective to use Facebook in academic ways.  I thought about the idea of making an "Algebra AB" Facebook page, which could list homework and reminders for the students to be "friends" with.  This could act as a virtual space for students to ask each other questions.  I would feel comfortable regulating this page because it would not contain any of my personal information.  Since students are always on Facebook anyways, this could be an effective strategy to get students discussing and checking class related material!