An interesting article in Education Week titled Friend or Foe? Balancing the Good and Bad of Social-Networking Sites draws attention (again) to the potential pitfalls of promoting the use of social networking in our schools and classrooms. It begins with a story of a group of students in a US school who are disciplined after photos of them shown drinking alcohol are discovered on a Facebook site. Since drinking alcohol is against the school rules, and the fact that Facebook is a public site, the school felt it had no option but to punish them.

The article argues that “educators must have a clear vision and guidelines for doing so, or they will face serious technical and legal pitfalls. And… schools have a role to play in educating students about safely and appropriately using such sites.” The writer lists the following tips for social networking use by educators:

1. Establish a policy for dealing with incidents in which students break school rules and their inappropriate behavior is showcased publicly on social-networking sites.

2. Outline clear guidelines for administrators that spell out how schools should discipline students based on information garnered from social-networking sites, and let parents and students know about those rules.
3. Educate students about online-safety issues and how to use sites such as Facebook and MySpace responsibly
4. Have a policy in place for dealing with cyber bullying.
5. If teachers are using social-networking sites for educational purposes, they should establish clear guidelines for how they intend to communicate with students via those sites

. Some useful advice here, worth noting and acting upon.

The uptake of web-based tools and applications in the Web2.0 world prompts a question in my mind from time to time - “where is all the information stored, and who has access to it?”

I thought about this again when I read Sue Water’s latest post in which she has published the results of a Twitter poll she conducted by asking her Twitter followers to name their favourite 3 Web2.0 applications (apart from Twitter, del.icio.us and Frirefox.)

I’m very interested to note the extent to which Google applications emerged in the favourites list from her poll. I’m a big fan and user of many of these myself, but recently have become aware of of Google’s reputation of being “hostile” towards users privacy.

This was brought home to me further recently a recent article in the Globe and Mail titled Patriot Act Haunts Google which highlights that the Google on-line services (Docs, Sites etc) are subject to the “USA Patriot” Act (in fact an acronym that stands for ” Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001) which could make the use of the sites they consider (a) a threat to academic freedom, or (b) in breach of Canada’s privacy laws - depending on what data is put there.

Certainly food for thought, I suspect we’ll see more debate on this emerging in the next few months.

Brilliant comment from Miguel Guhlin on Al Upton’s blog which I just have to refer to here. Writing with just a modicum of hyperbole, Miguel illustrates the tensions that I referred to in my previous blog entry, of a system that is resistant to the very essence of change that is impacting on it from every quarter, and where the pedagogy of assessment continues to drive the pedagogy of instruction!

Al, as a school district administrator myself, but also, as a citizen of the United States, I have to confess that I’m a bit grateful your blog has been shut down and Australian children denied the opportunity to engage in global collaobrations and learning. Here’s why:

In the United States, blogs are distractions to the real job of educators to improve student achievement on accountability measures. Blogs, as tools for online publishing, engage students with access to an authentic audience–that sometimes, let’s be honest, can be TOO authentic if you get what I mean–and may result in divergent learning that is, to be frank, unsuitable to preparing children for yesterday’s workforce. We want children who are literate, but lack that attitude that would hurt their careers and survival in our workforce…it is our goal to establish (and we’ve done an excellent job aside from your blogging efforts) a, what Paulo Friere calls, “domesticating” educational experience.

Secondly, you’ve no doubt read of books like Wikinomics, The World is Flat, and A Whole New Mind…these are books that speak to the interconnectedness of world affairs, peer productions–companies working in tandem across the globe to create a new product marketed to millions on the web–necessary in the future. I’m honestly grateful that Australians will be barred from this world, prevented from joining peer producers in the world. To be honest, in the United States, there’s been a bit of concern that you Australians (not to mention New Zealanders) have been engaging too rapidly in this new virtual world.

It’s a relief to know that you’ll be “dummed down” to join the United States in a slower realization of these truths. Some argue that we need to distinguish between using technology as a way to empower students, facilitate communication/collaboration at a distance rather than using technology to domesticate our students, helping them achieve basic skills that won’t get them much farther anyways. But you see, in this competitive, global economy, disempowering YOUR children may allow mine to do well.

Al, take a hit for the opposite team. Rejoice that my students will whip your’s when it comes to working online, and that you won’t have distractions when drilling students in basic skills.

With appreciation for the lack of leadership in your part of the world,
Miguel Guhlin Around the Corner-MGuhlin.net
http://mguhlin.net
U.S. School District Administrator

Less than a week since I blogged about Jabiz Raisdana being asked to resign from his position in a school because of a posting on his blog, the Twitterverse has been alive again with news of yet another teacher whose class blog has been closed down amid fears that content posted on it may place students at risk. This time its someone closer to home (Australia in fact) and someone who is also on my Twitter list - so the new came first hand.

Al Upton is an innovative teacher based in South Australia who has been using blogs with his students for a couple of years now. His “Mini Legends” as he calls them (and his blog) use a blog to write about what they’re up to and communicate with others as a regular part of their classroom work. I met Al at the CEGSA conference in Adelaide in 2006 where I presented a keynote speech, and was present when Al was named CEGSA Educator Of The Year in recognition for the creative work he does with his students.

So what made the Department of Education and Children’s Services in South Australia decide to close his blog down? Seems there was concern over the possibility that some of what appeared on his class blog may have led to students in his class being able to be identified - thus placing them at risk. suffice to say that the comments have been flying fast and furious all weekend - both in the comments left on his blog, people writing their own view of events on their own blogs (see the entry by Al’s good friend http://gwegner.edublogs.org/2008/03/15/in-support-of-al-and-the-minilegends/), and of course, via Twitter!

Now I’m not wanting to re-visit the saga in this blog (you can get a much better idea of what is happening by reading the trail of comments left on Al’s blog) - suffice to say that the actions of DECS hasn’t exactly been widely praised - which is exactly the issue that concerns me.

Al has capably demonstrated over the past two years that his primary concern in all he does is his students. this includes his efforts to liberate their minds and creativity through the programmes he provides for them in his classroom (and online), and in his attention to details that affect their privacy and safety when working in these environments - as demonstrated by the rules and guidelines he’s thoughtfully put in place. He has contributed significantly to the development of effective practices in this area, and has been an inspriation to many others, as illustrated in this comment on his blog:

I am really saddened by what’s happened and offer my support to you all. It was the miniLegends that inspired me and my class 2 years ago to start blogging, and the support and encouragement that you offered me Al is well remembered and appreciated. Keep your spirits up and know that everyone in the blogosphere is standing with you - you are inspirational, committed and thoroughly professional in all you have done, are doing and will continue to do in the future.

Despite this, there appears to have been no collegial discussion to discuss the concerns raised, no professional discourse to understand the intent of the blog or to discover what procedures exist to govern and guide student use of it - nothing. Just an out of the blue announcement that:

This blog has been disabled in compliance with DECS wishes (Department of Education and Children’s Services - South Australia)

Surely Al deserves better than this? Surely all educators deserve better than this? Or do we have to be satisfied that it’s OK for those in authority in the system to act in ways that contradict the very codes of conduct that people such as Al so dutifully attempt to introduce to his students and have them observe in the way they work together?

Here’s an interesting plug-in for the Firefox browser called Glubble When installed, Glubble permits each member of the family to have their own custom environment, so that when kids use it they only see the very best parts of the Internet based on selections made by their parents or supplied by trusted family brands.

I know there are all sorts of views about whether or not it is appropriate to block websites etc, but as software of this nature goes, Glubble is not bad. It took me just a few minutes to install and set up with several accounts. Glubble is designed for you to easily add or subtract sites from your child’s Glubble World which means that you tailor your child’s on line experience to be the way you want it, and the Glubble Altered Search makes Google and Yahoo show results from childrens trusted Glubbleworld instead of the world wide web. Installing Glubble doesn’t alter your own web browsing experience - the Glubble screen appears when you launch Firefox, and once you log on your normal view of Firefox appears.

Not only is installation easy, but you can set the look and feel of Glubble to suit the reading ability of your child - there’s even a pre-reading option in the set-up, but I haven’t tried that yet. I’d be interested to hear from others who have tried it out.

Thanks to Simon Grehan who responded to my previous post and pointed me to the work of the International Congressional Internet Caucus, and a project titled Just The Facts About Online Youth Victimization
Researchers Present the Facts and Debunk Myths

I’ve spent some time browsing the resources in this site, and found some fascinating papers that have been contributed by the panel members, including one by Amanda Lenhart titled Teens, privacy and online networks that concludes that “The majority of teens actively manage their online profiles to keep the information they believe is most sensitive away from the unwanted gaze of strangers, parents and other adults.”

Among the others I found of interest is a report by Ybarra et.al. titled Online Victimization of Youth: Five Years Later in which they summarise the level of “net savviness” among young people and the growing tide of unwanted sexual solicitations that these people are being bombarded with. The authors advocate a more aggressive prevention plan, that includes:

1. education programs directed toward families

2. the development of technology tools and access controls
3. law-enforcement efforts directed against those who use the Internet for criminal purposes

This balance between education and direct intervention appears to have a lot to commend it - and there are plenty of other readings on this site that I’m interested to pursue.

Thanks to Simon for pointing this out

Concern about student safety in the online environment continues to be an issue worldwide. In my previous post I referred to the tension between the responses of moral fear and digital faith. It appears that the proliferation of social networking sites and applications is a key driver of this.

This morning I’ve been reading report from the US National School Boards Association (pdf download) titled “Creating & Connecting: Research and Guidelines on Online Social and Educational Networking” that reports ninety-six percent of U.S. students ages 9 to 17 who have internet access use social-networking technology to connect with their peers, and one of their most common topics of discussion is education. Not surprising in a way, since the report also finds that nearly all of the school districts surveyed (96%) say that at least some of their teachers assign homework that requires Internet use to complete.

Meanwhile, an article on the Wall Street Journal reports on a study found users of the Facebook social-networking site are too gullible in giving up personal information, which could make them the targets of identity theft. The researchers fabricated a Facebook profile and asked 200 Facebook users at random to give up personal information. Out of the 200 friend requests, Sophos received 82 responses, with 72% of those respondents divulging one or more e-mail address; 84% listing their full date of birth 87% providing details about education or work; 78% listing their current address or location; 23% giving their phone number; and 26% providing their instant messaging screen name.

All of which suggests to me that our efforts must go into an educating our students (and our teachers!) about what is appropriate behaviour online - rather than adopting the fear perspective and attempting to isolate them from it.