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In the organizational communication course I taught last semester, my students studied communication mechanismstools that carry messages from an organization to one of its constituencies or audiences. For one assignment, I had each student analyze a different communication mechanism. Some of the students looked at more traditional mechanisms, such as snail mail, meetings and memos. Others looked at Internet-era mechanisms, such as instant messaging and e-mails.

A cheerleader in my class asked if she could do her analysis on MySpace. I hadn't really thought of the social-networking, so-called "Web 2.0" site as a communication mechanism, nor had I thought that sites such as MySpace or Facebook had a place in the classroom. I thought her work would be fluffy, but she ended up doing an excellent analysis on the power of MySpace as a communication mechanism.

With the prevalence of MySpace and other social-network sites in teen America today, perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised that, sooner or later, MySpace would invade my classroom.

A recent Pew Interview survey suggested that more than half of teenaged Internet users have signed onto social-network sites by creating a profile. Furthermore, just less than half visit social-network sites every day.

K-12 and college educators are aware of the need to integrate technology in the classroom, but the nature of MySpace, which has become infamous for students showing off the seedier side of student life, has educators at a loss sometimes as to knowing when it is appropriate to bring MySpace into the classroom. For example, even though MySpace pages are by default public (anyone can access them), does it violate a student's privacy if his or her MySpace page is shown in class?

MySpace Ambush

Some college professors who are teaching about rhetorical issues, Internet communication and privacy law have started using the "MySpace Ambush" as a painful object lesson for students who are brazen enough to publish embarrassing details and photos about their lives online.

Oftentimes, according to several blogs by professors on the matter, professors will collect unfortunate photos of students who have public MySpace pages and compile those photos into a slide show for the whole class. Some professors have argued that this may not violate the legal right to privacy, but it certainly violates the spirit of privacy laws. Others have said that learning the dangers of online posting in a relatively protected environment is better than learning

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