Overprotective Parents…I mean Schools
“Is it more unethical to allow threats to students/schools, or to deny students/teachers access to instructionally-relevant Web-based tools and content?”
I do have to admit that this was a very hard question to answer for two reasons (1) There is a lot of garbage on the internet and (2) while trying to find which sites are blocked in Volusia County, I realized that the filtering software has been down for the past three days. But, if I have to pick only one side to defend I think it is more unethical to deny students and teachers access to instructionally relevant material. In the past three days, we have already had a few incidents of students logging onto sites that are normally blocked by our security. Although these incidents occurred, they have not gone on without discipline to the students that made poor choices, because our media center has a program on the teacher’s computer station that views all the computers in the lab and our media specialist was able to catch these students. We also have a student code of conduct that specifies what students can and cannot do while they are on the computer. I find it a little overprotective when we have forms the students are required to sign agreeing to use the internet appropriately before they can go on the internet, we have a program that monitors what they are doing on the internet and filtering software county-wide that does not allow students to access certain sites on the internet. Having these limitations is not the reality they are going to have as adults. I feel for these students to be successful in the 21st century we need to allow them the opportunity to have access to all educational content the internet has to offer. In Devaney’s article she quotes “TCEA Board President Elect Lacey Gosch said today’s students expect classrooms that use digital tools in every step of the learning process. “Only through the use of technology can we make their expectations a reality,” she said (Devaney, 2011). The same is true for teachers. If we are to be considered and treated as professionals then there needs to be a level of trust from the county and administrators of their staff. They trust us with educating these young minds but don’t seem to trust us to monitor the students internet use and facilitate and model moral judgment when it comes to using the internet as a tool in the classroom. I think it is a good idea for teachers to create curriculum pages. Curriculum pages are web pages created by teachers with hyperlinks they selected that have been previewed before the students access the sites. This makes it easier for the students because they are no longer typing in URL’s and not spending too much of their time searching the internet for relevant sites (Shelly, 495). Overall I feel there has got to be a better way to filter what students have access to without the use of such restricting filtering software. Without this software it will enable teachers to teach and model appropriate etiquette for internet usage.
References:
Devaney, Laura (Feb. 9, 2011) eSchoolNews.com TCEA seeks to remove barriers from tech access Retrieved: Feb. 10, 2011
http://www.eschoolnews.com/2011/02/09/tcea-seeks-to-remove-barriers-from-tech-access/?utm_source=website&utm_medium=url&utm_campaign=slider
Shelly, G. B., Gunter, G. A., & Gunter, R.E. (2010). Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom Sixth Edition. Boston, MA: Cendage
I agree with you that there are so many attempts to keep the students from drifting off to those inappropriate sites, between the Internet user agreement, filtering software, and the watchful eye of the media specialist. A little excessive?
ReplyDeleteThese students have to understand, it is pretty simple. Using the Internet in school is an advantage for them and they need to understand that. However, we are not obligated to give them the access if they do not follow the policies. Of course, we need to drill that in the elementary grades. Frankly, I would prefer if the media specialist was providing some support to aiding teachers that need help in locating valuable resources, rather than monitor the students. I really do think that if the teacher wanders around while the students are on the computer, it will be noticed if you have some Internet abusers.
I wonder not only who, but how a person determines how the filtering software works in the schools. It seems to be that we may be filtering and filtering and filtering....but isn't filtering subjective (forgetting about the obvious lewd material filtering)?
I think the same should hold true for the teachers. Why are teachers being blocked and subject to filtering? Just like you say, they trust us with these students to teach them, Internet use is just part of the teaching.
I like the idea of the curriculum pages and especially how it can save time when students are trying to input correct URL's, but I really do believe that teachers need to be trusted and not have sites blocked by arbitrary decision-makers.
You said, "I think it is more unethical to deny students and teachers access to instructionally relevant material," and I agree wholeheartedly. The goal of education is not simply to teach content. In the long run, most people do not care about calculus, Newtonian physics, or the life cycle of a plant cell. This content is the MEANS by which we teach kids to be critical thinkers and creative problem solvers. I know that teaching kids what is appropriate (or not) is HARD, and never giving them access to anything controversial makes that job really easy. But seriously, restricting access does not teach students to evaluate what is appropriate. If they never have the ability to make a decision then how will they ever learn to make GOOD decisions? You cannot learn consequences for your behaviors if you never get the opportunity to choose the path.
ReplyDeleteYou also said, "If we are to be considered and treated as professionals then there needs to be a level of trust from the county and administrators of their staff. They trust us with educating these young minds but don’t seem to trust us to monitor the students internet use and facilitate and model moral judgment when it comes to using the internet as a tool in the classroom." I believe this says it all. I enjoyed reading your post. Paula
In searching for posts to comment on, I decided to find one that I agreed with, and one that I disagreed with. I could not agree more with several of your statements in this reading reaction. "Having these limitations is not the reality they are going to have as adults" is a very true statement. While I am all for protecting children, older students need to learn to take responsibility for their own digital actions. So many of them seem unaware of the real life consequences of digital mischief - expulsion from school/college, job loss, and lawsuits are only a few that come to mind immediately.
ReplyDeleteI also like how you stated that "If we are to be considered and treated as professionals then there needs to be a level of trust from the county and administrators of their staff." Most teachers I know have a higher level of frustration with the bureaucratic aspects of the job than the student part of the job. Teaching is hard when our hands are tied in so many ways. Now off to comment on that post I disagree with!
I am right there with you. It was hard to choose. Funny you mentioned the problem with the schools software that blocks content. You have to administer consequences. In my computer lab students have been expelled for going on unauthorized websites. The school’s policy is posted in the computer lab and in the student handbook/Integrity Policy. Also one last comment, I “TELL” my students I can monitor from my computer and that deters them from going on unauthorized school websites. Also, if I do an audit after my students are dismissed, and there are unauthorized websites in the History anyone who used that computer that afternoon will be brought to the office. This helps too. Thankfully, it hasn’t happened yet. My students need to stay on their work in order to get ahead and into the GED program. We just added filters to block certain websites in my lab two weeks ago, but there are other sites they still want to access.
ReplyDeleteI believe that filtering/blocking is done since tax payers pay for educating our students, and funding our libraries, so public schools and libraries have to block content. This may be an opinion but I do remember this subject coming up a few years ago.
I think any teacher that has a webpage for their classroom is content when you can add great direct links to help the students with supplemental resources that were EASY to get to. For my webpage for Taberesources I FOCUS, FOCUS, FOCUS on relevant links. I am only getting my student familiar with the site this month they are so reluctant to use it so it has to be helpful and relevant. The Adjuncts also have access to it now. If you want to view it is; https://sites.google.com/site/taberesources/.