Facebook Frenzy

I just read an incredible statistic. 

People spend 500 billion minutes per month on Facebook.  The average Facebook user spends 55 munites per day on the site (Facebook, 2010; Hepburn, 2010). 

This fact was listed in Willima M. Ferriter's article "Digitally Speaking."

Although teachers, students, and administrators are becoming increasingly involved in social media, these spaces are banned in most schools. I looked at the law governing internet usage in New York State schools.  The law is called the Children's Internet Protection Act or CIPA.

The Acceptable Use Policy in my district and in most schools does not allow Facebook.  How can we teach our students how to use social media properly if we are denied access?