I have run into the wall many, many, MANY times in my five years of teaching. While I'm trying to get some work done, or while students are researching information, we run head first right into it... the internet firewall. This actually just happened today. I have students researching the candidates and the referendum questions for the upcoming mid-term elections. They were looking around at different websites, and many of them found video and audio clips that they wanted to view or listen to. Most of these turned out to be blocked by our school's firewall. I understand the need to have some regulation on sites like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, but I wonder if completely blocking the students' access to them is the answer. Many of these sites can be used as learning tools, but when they are blocked from access the student certainly doesn't see them that way.
While we were researching as a class today my students were surprised that most of the candidates in this election shared links to their Facebook or Twitter accounts. They were shocked and thought that it wasn't very professional or "sophisticated", as one student told me, for these public officials to be a part of these types of social networking sites. They get told so often to beware of these sites, or that these sites are bad and they shouldn't be on them. The fact that they can't be on them at school because they are all blocked tells them that these sites are not an educational tool, when in reality, if used properly, they can be a wonderful educational tool. I think it's becoming more and more apparent that if we are to help teach them how to be good digital citizens, we need to allow them the tools to practice these skills.
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It is definitely sending the wrong message to our students. I do think we are fortunate to have a way to bypass the filter and if there is something that we feel strongly shouldn't be blocked, we can talk to someone. I have friends who work in schools that do not trust even the teachers with the bypass option which really hinders the students' education.
I love that post Caitlyn! The connection between our consistent reminder to students that Facebook etc. are EVIL and their thought that candidates use of such technology is unprofessional is so wonderful! I mean that it is wonderful in a totally ridiculous sort of way. I wonder if when these kids are in high school and realize the possibilities of using social networking (both the good and the bad), they will think their middle school teachers were just completely out of touch with the real world. I would love to share this with all of the teachers out there who are so afraid of kids using these sites or anything on the computer because they will inevitably use it for bad and not good. We do not have the "bypass" option but luckily, we have access to a lot of sites including YouTube. This is incredibly interesting Caitlyn!
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