Allowing students to use Web2.0 hit a glitch last week after posting this video on the school intranet.
I feel fairly strongly that almost no awareness or teaching is being done to educate students about using social participation sites such as MySpace and Bebo in school. As we have all but raised the white flag in the proxy wars, the only way forward is to teach our kids on how to use these technologies well. As most old school educators are unware that Web2.0 exists in the large part, then it is not suprising that kids make up thier own rules, largely based on peer-influences. They lack the life skills to make sound judgements on what or what not to post and say. If we teach them about ‘digital social responsibility’ and how it apply thier out of school skills to learning situations, then I suspect the proxy war will end, as they will be too busy to entertain themselves. A busy engaged student is what we all seek.
I was suprised when a collegue stated that after the video had ended that YouTube offers links to other content (no!) and that content may not be ‘appropriate’ for our school. This is the catch 22 in Web2.0 and demonstrates the void that educators pushing for this school-culture-change are facing.
Of course there are videos on YouTube that are not appropriate. The suggestion was that ‘our’ network should exlude any such content or links. We should ensure that no images or content can be seen by students that is not entirely appropriate.
This to me is impossible, unless we whitelist all inbound content. It demonstrates the need for us to teach the teachers as well as the students on what is appropriate. Teach them to objectively select what to watch and when.
Given the amount of information and images pushed on kids by all forms of media daily on TV and in print media … we cannot ignore the reality that our kids are being left to figure this out themselves. We need to set boundaries and teach them what is appropriate at a given age. Technology itself cannot be used to prevent this exposure, we can’t apply a 50’s metality of censorship to something that ultimately cannot be censored. The only solution is to turn off the internet and return to chalk and talk.
The gap between what we are talking about providing students and daring to deliver is widening, and the proxy war is a sympton of student frustration. Teacher monitoring and active class engagement in positive digital behaviour should be part of a school social justice policy, not and system administration policy alone.
Do you know what ‘other life’ your child is particpating in online? Do you understand how your child live out part of their life digitally? What are you doing to help them make objective choices?
If you don’t teach them, then don’t be suprised if they ‘do the wrong thing’. The are bound to make poor choices if they are not aware of the better ones.
