Follow-up

After my last post, I thought I should follow up a bit.  I sent my last post to my principal, and it started a much needed discussion/debate.  To set-up his response, he's very hard line against social networking and mobile devices in school.  I've spoken with him at every opportunity about the need and benefit of using these resources in school, and we've developed an ongoing, fun argument about it.  I get where he's coming from, to a point, and he definitely has the best interests of his student body and their education in mind.  He has allowed students in my classes to use their mobile devices while they are in my classroom, and I see this as a compliment to my teaching ability since it is so far out of his comfort zone.

My principal quickly shot back at me last week that we should have a debate about it, and while he was confident that I would oversee the use of social networks adequately and teach students to use them appropriately, he couldn't say the same for every other teacher.  I understand this, and this led to the bigger problem behind the problem that leads to the outright ban of these sites:  network rights.  My side of the debate brought up the fact that Chemistry teachers frequently use hydrochloric acid in their classes, even though it can be very dangerous.  But, because those teachers are qualified to oversee its use, we allow it because it is in the best interests of our students' education.  The problem is that hydrochloric acid is really easy to keep in the chemical locker while network rights to access Facebook, Twitter, etc. isn't currently easy to keep locked up in the computer lab.  As our network stands now, they are either accessible from our entire network or none of our network.

Grumble, grumble, debate more, grumble, grumble.

However far away the prospect of having the ability to teach my students what they really need to know may be, at least I can keep it front and center by continuing to bring it up and keep it in the conversation.  And, we know what we need to look at as a school; who knows, maybe sometime soon on our network, it will be possible to make certain machines in our building have different filter restrictions than others.  Let's make it a priority to find a way to allow the use of these "volatile chemicals"while still being able to keep them in the "social network chemical locker."

Social Networking: Come on Schools

Recently I decided, after hearing complaints from board members and parents, to browse around Twitter and see what my students were up to.  Holy cow; was I ever disappointed!  To set things up, a little background.  I do not have a Facebook account; I've never seen any need for it.  I do use Twitter, however, and I follow some friends and use it to keep up with news and posts about education and technology.  I don't post much, and I use it mostly for entertainment rather than business.  Since Twitter has exploded in popularity recently among our students, I decided to spend some time browsing around.

At first I was extremely disgusted with my students because of what I found.  I found more inappropriate language than I could have imagined, Jr. High students posting personal/objectionable information, sisters telling each other not to share with parents that they have these accounts, mentions of drug use, profanity, etc.  Simply appalling.  Thoughts running through my head varied from, "I should email screenshots to parents" to "Did these students not hear anything I said about internet safety" to "Don't these students realize that any future employer is going to be heading straight to what I was looking at upon application for a position and decide quickly not to hire them?"

But fairly quickly my disgust shifted from these students to what we do as a school... All social networks are flat out blocked and disallowed during the school day.  A while back, Scott McLeod posted a reference to this poster on his Mind Dump directed at this problem exactly.  It comes from David Truss, who also writes excellent analogies out of frustration with this same issue.

I quickly came to this analogy:  Social networking is like a jar full of candy.

What we do now, even in school, is teach students the benefits of eating healthy.  We allow them to eat real candy, but we teach them how to do it appropriately and in moderation.  We don't confiscate every Dum Dum that comes through our doors, but rather, we often use candy as a reward.  We teach them about the dangers of tooth decay and ways to avoid it.  We teach them about obesity and diabetes and their link to sugary foods.  Sure, candy can be bad for you, but we educate on the appropriate use of candy in order to avoid these issues.  It's called Health class.

On the other hand, with the Social Networking Candy Jar, we have shown it to students but repeatedly told them "No, you can't have ANY."  We keep that jar of candy just out of reach of students and pretend it isn't there (but students know it is).  We ignore it to the point that we don't even educate students on the benefits and dangers of it.  So, as soon as we are out of sight, students are digging into this Social Networking Candy Jar.  They're eating until their stomach aches and their teeth are falling out.  They don't know that this will  affect their future.  And even though we know students are are doing this, we just pretend they aren't and continue ignoring the problem and standing by our line of "Don't eat the candy."

Come on schools, get with it.  Broad internet filters and banning of Social Networking altogether isn't working.  Our students are involved with it.  The least we could do is educate them.

Image: David Truss, "Warning - We Filter Websites At School!" March 5, 2010 via Flickr, CC BY NC SA