Nice find by Christian Long of this short little blurb in Fast Company titled “Social Networking Evades Schools.” Seems NSBA surveyed schools and found that most don’t have a policy in place regarding the use of social networking sites, and, as you can probably guess, of those that do, most said the policy is to block access. Go figure. But the good news is that NSBA’s executive director seems to be getting it:
It is important to keep in mind that just blocking access to social web sites at school is not the end of the story. Most of the misuse of these sites takes place at home, but still affects the classroom. We have to teach our students about the safe and proper use of social web sites.
Well, that’s a start. Certainly, MySpace and Facebook should be in the curriculum to facilitate the conversation about everything that could go wrong. But what about to talk about everything that could go right? What about teaching them how to use social networking sites to connect to potential teachers, to publish their ideas, share content? What about making sure that they know how to leverage what MySpace offers?
The problem is that most educators still don’t “get” what these sites represent. But I found this excerpt of Steve Hargadon’s new podcast interview with Plano Assistant Superintendent Jim Hirsch to be spot on:
Our students of today, because of access to media, the internet, and instant messaging ‘no longer rely on a historical perspective to make decisions.’ The rely much more on their friends…
The social interactions that our students are having online are steeped in information gathering of one sort or another, as well they should be. Aren’t ours? Whether they know it or not, they need to understand the ins and outs of reputation networks and filters. And I’ll ask it again…who is teaching them?
From a parent perspective, I’ve started thinking about how social tools can be a part of my kids’ practice from early on. Yesterday, I set my seven and nine year old kids (and, um, myself) up with Club Penguin accounts, and in the context of doing so, we talked about what it means to be interacting with other real people online. Yes, they need to be careful, and we went through the don’ts. But they should also be willing to find friends to chat with, to play games with, to communicate with. When they’re old enough, I’ll help them set up their MySpace accounts, or whatever the social networking site du jour is. And I’ll also help them with del.icio.us and their blogs and whatever other online tools might serve them. (I just bought them their own .name domains yesterday…they’re gonna need a collection point.)
Point is, we have to do more than unblock. We have to do more than just teach them what not to do. We have to help them leverage the tools.
So, what’s in your policy?
Technorati Tags: club_penguin, social, education, filtering, learning
This reminded me that I had just read about YALSA’s Myspace page somewhere yesterday. Yalsa is the Young Adult Librarian division of ALA.
http://www.myspace.com/yalsa
They also have links to other libraries with teen myspace pages, including one where we live, which I wasn’t aware of. I noticed none of those featured were school libraries. I’d like to put a link to the local library’s on my website but it’s blocked at school(as you mentioned). I think I will link it anyway, so that students can use it from home.
I noticed that one of the libraries featured, the Plano Library (www.myspace.planoteens), did have a “caveat” statement that students should stay safe online when leaving their site, and they linked to some internet safety sites. That seems more in keeping with teaching students/teens to think about what they are doing online than disallowing social networking tools.
I have some mixed feelings about Myspace but I defeinitely see the point of libraries having a presence there. But I do believe we can’t be credible or teach our students about safety if we don’t have access to teach them. As David Jakes said at Tech Forum Austin, you don’t teach students to cross the street on a “fake” street.
And being hit by a car is dangerous.
At our campus, there is much more frustration of not being able to use tools like Google Video and YouTube. We had an issue with blogs earlier in the summer, but managed to get that resolved in a constructive way and several of us are blogging.
I think having organizations like NSBA weigh in will be helpful to districts trying to be supportive of a more open process.
I have no policy yet, because I have no kids yet, but boy, you have me thinking. And this is not something that you want to wait to do your thinking until it comes to you. Thanks for being a stand for caring for and our responsibility to the next generation!
I have two kids a son age 9 and daughter age 13. We actually have a Family AUP – which basically says I pay for the access and I can take it away – kind of what what most business tell their employees, though I can not fire my kids though the thought has crossed my mind. We set down together to lay out what was acceptable and why and what was not. Then we wrote it up. We just re-did my 13 year old’s as she now uses more IM and online chats.
My son has a club penguin account along with all his cousins who live in many states. It was his first introduction to that sort of thing. He now plays World of Warcraft along with Dad and his sister, all three now run their old guilds and are learning collaborative and leadership skills.
The kids are learning to blog on the private family blog. Each week or so they write a post to share with the extended family. Just today my son asked if he could start reading other blogs about gaming and game design. Maybe it is time to redo his AUP.
We are currently having a group of high school students develop our districts policy. They have been very mature and understanding about what should and should not be accessible.
This February I’ll be attending the eTech Conference that you’ll presenting at. I’m bringing a group of students to set up a student display called “Blogging Across the Curriculum.” Make a point to stop by and ask them what they’ve been doing with blogs in my classroom.
They recently have started embedding videos from YouTube and Metacafe in their entries. Unfortunately, they must do this at home since they can’t access these sites at school due to the filter. In your words, I think they’ve really learned to leverage these tools.
I just posted links to entries from the five kids who’ll be going to Columbus on my blog. Check them out, they’re awesome!
JTubbs
misterteacher.blogspot.com
Thanks for the link to Club Penguin. I’ve been looking for new social networks for children. One I like, as well, is http://www.Whyville.net. It encourages self-monitoring and reporting of inappropriate behavior. Of course, for this to work, students must first know what constitutes appropriate/inappropriate online behavior. We are focusing on educating parents, and will be hosting 3 web safety meetings this spring. I attended a session on web safety this past summer that included an officer from the Texas Attorney General’s Internet Task Force and a rep from http://www.netsmartz.org. They both emphasized the importance of training students, but they also stressed the need for parents/teachers to monitor students’ use of social networks/blogs extensively. Parents and teachers must know logins/passwords and make frequent, unannounced visits to kids’ pages to make sure they are following the rules they have been taught. This isn’t invading privacy, either–it’s responsible parenting/teaching.
Kern stated:
“We are currently having a group of high school students develop our districts policy. They have been very mature and understanding about what should and should not be accessible.”
I like this. We also had a group of students help devise our district’s acceptable use policy, and their input was valuable, and, at times, very enlightening (even shocking). Great idea.
“In this tragic case it was the sheriff’s department that found the photo. In your case, or the case of your children, it may be a potential employer. That college degree mom and dad just paid for is great, but a lot of good it will do when you apply for that first job. Remember, most companies have a policy: “fools need not apply.”… Read what the Editorial of a Wilmington, NC TV station has to say about Social Networks. He addresses Social Networkings reported influence on the actions of the police department as they investigated the theft of a Sony PS3 and the fatal shooting of a suspect and his dog. I think the editorial could add weight to need for teaching students about the ethical use of social networking.
http://www.wect.com/global/story.asp?s=5930875&ClientType=Printable
My district currently blocks MySpace and other social sites. As well it should. I do think there are some benefits to utilizing the web for social networking, though. I just posted a way in which schools could take a MySpace-like approach to allowing students and educators to interact with one another, while ensuring student safety.