The Internet and its social-networking sites present an easy venue for often-anonymous student bullying that can be difficult for parents, schools and police to regulate. As bullying has moved to cyberspace, issues concerning who has authority over off-campus behavior and how to uncover the identity of online aggressors complicate efforts to prevent the offenses or discipline those responsible. The New York Times (free registration)
This New York Times series is excellent and this story is particularly interesting. I love that Holly has connected all the dots into one piece. it is worth reading and exploring all the links included.
By HOLLY EPSTEIN OJALVO, New York Times, Education
“Today’s installment of the Your Brain on Computers series is the article “Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction,” which looks at the challenges that technology presents for teaching and learning.
The article includes two multimedia features showcasing the impact of technology on the learning environment: “Teachers’ Views on Technology in the Classroom,” a series of six videos in which teachers talk about how they use technology, and “Students and Technology, Constant Companions,” a set of audio clips in which students at Woodside High School in Redwood City, Calif., discuss how technology affects them.
Teachers: How do the article and the first-hand stories from students and teachers resonate with you? How do they reflect your experiences? Do they give you any new ideas? What tips would you add to what experts say about creating a “healthy digital diet”? Share your thoughts below.
Your students can weigh in, too, by sharing how their teachers use technology and their thoughts on reading print publications or e-texts.
See our Technology lesson plan collection for related activities. Lesson topics include taking stock of personal digital media habits, the effects of multitasking and the use of cellphones as learning tools. You may also be interested in our collections of resources about bullying and cyberbullying and suggested tech tools for teachers.”
The issue of school systems controlling access to the Internet—and teachers complaining about it—is not new. Firewalls and content filters have irritated tech-savvy educators since the early days of blogs, wikis and streaming video. And those same virtual barriers have been defended by safety-sensitive IT directors and ever-cautious school attorneys since the first MySpace page pranked a teacher or revealed far too much about a student.
But two factors seem to be ratcheting up teachers’ long-standing pleas to ease restrictions on internet use in classrooms and computer labs: (1) increasingly, business and higher education leaders are asking why students aren’t better prepared to create and collaborate using online tools; and (2) more schools and districts are beginning to loosen internet restrictions, prompting other educators to ask: “If they can do it, why can’t we?”
Hoping to move the debate along, members of the Teacher Leaders Network recently had a very frank discussion of the topic in our 24/7/365 private chat room. Here’s a sample of what we had to say. (To honor our TLN confidentiality agreement, I’ve only used first names here.)
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Searching for a Cyberbully Solution?
SchoolReach Instant Parent Contact and Web Wise Kids have joined forces to offer the CyberBully Prevention & Response Kit
Picture a world where you are constantly tormented and can’t seem to get away, overwhelmed by bullies during the school day and at night in your home. It doesn’t seem right, does it? Well it’s the world that countless students live in today. With the advent of constant connectivity brought on by the pervasive nature of cell phones and social media, there is no escape. Sometimes kids just don’t know where to turn. Fortunately there is help! SchoolReach Instant Parent Contact and Web Wise Kids have teamed up to create the CyberBully Prevention & Response Kit.
Experts agree that a successful answer to cyberbullying must include both education and response solutions. TheCyberBully Prevention & Response Kit delivers both in one easy-to-implement package.
The kit includes:
This powerful new collaboration carries a low cost but delivers a high impact. Get your CyberBully Prevention & Response Kit and stop cyberbullies today! Request information at www.schoolreach.com/cyberbully.html or just click on the image to the right. |
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Freshman and sophomore students at a new Michigan technology high school drafted a “digital constitution” that they signed before receiving laptop computers to use for the school year. The document lists students’ responsibilities and rights under the school’s technology policies. “The constitution they created will be signed by future generations of students,” the school’s principal said.
Read the full story at Press & Argus (Howell, Mich.)
Life just got easier for me. I use Firefox on multiple computers and am so excited not I can use it on my iPad and iPhone. As a friend of mine says, Yippy, Skippy
Firefox Home provides access to your Firefox desktop history, bookmarks and open tabs on your iPhone. Get up and go and have exactly what you are looking for on the Web on your iPhone or iPod Touch. Firefox Home uses your browser data, securely synced from Firefox on your desktop to the cloud, to let you search and browse quickly and efficiently. You can view the sites you want directly in Firefox Home, open them in Mobile Safari or share them with friends via email. Your Firefox data is private and only you have access to it. Access it here.
Link to Mozilla for more detailed Information
Update: Thanks to Crystal Priest I now have some clarification on this issue. Apparently this filtering setting wasn’t entirely intentional on the part of the D.O.E. or anyone else at the state level. The filtering problem arose with way the new image was constructed. You can read the details here. If you read the documentation you’ll find this phrase which still reflects the issue I bring up in the post below: “the default behavior is to log all web page requests.”
My original post follows:
In the state of Maine, all high school and middle school teachers are issued a MacBook by the state department of education. This morning I was using mine (I alternate between it and another computer in my house) to check Twitter. Someone posted a link to an interesting ebook creation service called ePub Bud. I clicked the link, visited the ePub Bud homepage thought, “I could use this,” and clicked the “create” link. Instead of being taken to the creation page on ePub Bud, I got this:
To read the full story, CLICK HERE
Related Resources
Wesley Fryer has a couple of good posts on this topic of blocking
1. Criticism of School District Content Filtering Policies is not a personal attack on ALL tech directors
2. Cognitive dissonance from the school internet filtering message
http://www.teenchatdecoder.com/
Ever wonder what your child is really saying online?
As parents, when our kids started to use the Internet more and more, we did what any good parent would do – we monitored their online activity.
We reviewed their browser history, or some parental control software product like PC Tattletale. But it was really frustrating when we found that our kids used abbreviations and acronyms in when chatting online or via their cell phones.
Now some acronyms are pretty easy to figure out, like “LOL” (Laugh Out Loud), but many made no sense at all – unless you were 15!
So several years ago we put together what would eventually become the largest “Teen Acronym Only” database on the net. Teen Chat Decoder was designed to help parents understand what their kids were “really” saying online and to help keep them safe.
Just start typing the term you wish to search for below. When you do, our teen chat term database will automatically start to display all possible results for your search.
http://www.teenchatdecoder.com/Lifehacker.com has an excellent article titled How to Stay Safe on Public Wi-Fi Networks. The article covers setting up and automating all the right settings on Mac as well as Windows. It is really good and explains thins with pictures quite clearly. Even though Macs are more secure and far less prone to viruses, trojans, and unauthorized access, we should always be serious about our computer security. Read the article by clicking here. I recommend passing it on to all your friends!
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The GenYes blog had a though provoking post the other day.
“Changes in technology mirror changes in society and culture, and can impact schools in a number of ways. Some schools hide their heads in the sand. Some take extreme stands like the principal quoted above. Some attempt to address the issues more evenhandedly, even though the law is not clear, nor is the “right” thing to do always obvious.“
There is a copy of an an email sent home from a New Jersey middle school principal attempting to curb cyberbullying at his school. GenYes, makes some good points and give some links to excellent resources. I love how Sylvia ends the post:
“The problem with this principal’s plan is that it won’t work. We simply can’t put this genie back in the bottle. We HAVE to address the issue of digital citizenship in the real climate that children actually live in.
This is a floodgate well and truly open, whether or not you declare it closed.”
I agree. I am always stunned, amazed and frustrated when schools have everything locked down so tightly that is is basically pointless to even try to use the internet for curriculum. And then when the tech director, say e-Rate requires it, I just want to scream!!!
When my kids were old enough to drive, I did not just give them the cars keys and say “go.” I sat beside them and taught them how to drive and navigate the highway safely. That is what we, and by we, I mean Parents and Teachers need to be doing, teaching them to “drive the Internet Safely,” rather than block everything and impede education. Teachers know what needs to be taught in their classrooms and how to handle things. Seems like we need to trust them to make decisions about how they are going to integrate Internet use in their classrooms and curriculum as well. I have said this before, were has all the trust gone!!!
My friend, Wesley Fryer, had a great post a couple weeks ago simply called WOW! It was a string of screen captures at a school district he was attempting to do professional development with TEACHERS. The screen captures were the message that pops-up with the blocking security software. Very few words, but very powerful message. Check it out. http://www.speedofcreativity.org/?s=Wow
Kevin Honeycutt, another friend does amazing Online Safety and Cyber-bullying trainings for kids, teachers, parents and communities. Check him out at http://kevinhoneycutt.com/ click on trainings. Kevin is the best presenter on this topic I have ever seen. His passion is contagious!!
Additional Resources
8 Tools to Track Your Footprints on the Web
Cyber Tipline
Stop Bullying Now
Wired Safety
Net Smarts
To Catch a Predator
Safe Kids
Tech Talk for Families
More resources on my Website at:http://cyndidannerkuhn.info/CDK/Internet_Safety.html
School change: Push versus pull, My Kids Turn
I’ve been reading a lot lately about how our world is changing from a “push” approach, to a “pull” approach. I’ve heard a couple of good examples of the old “push” method, TV and education. The TV executives make a command decision about which programs you get to watch. What day they are on, what time they are on, and if they will continued be on.
In the “pull” world you set your DVR and watch it whenever you want, furthermore, you can fast-forward through the commercials if you want. But the real “pull” world is YouTube. You can search for almost anything, and watch at any time, just about anything you want. There are no elites deciding what you get to see when you get to see it, it’s all up to you.
Another good example of the old-style “push” world is education. Our students are told what they have to take, when they have to take it, with very little if any choice. We have elite individuals who have decided what THE “standards” need to be for every child, and most of our curriculum in K-12 schools is mandated by colleges.
I’m very proud of the project my colleagues at ESSDACK have launched. It is truly a “pull” approach. The name of the project, and the website, are My Kids Turn. Each of the six programs, soon to be expanded to 10, contains video clips designed to help parents with the educational needs of their kids.
Jane Seward’s channel is called Magic Spell, and is intended for parents who want help their children become better spellers. Michelle Flaming’s channel is called By The Numbers, and is designed to give parents strategies to help their kids understand and love math. Reneé Smith and Jaime Hendricks team up on Just Deserts. Just Deserts gives parents table games that can be played with their kids at meal time, that support and enrich their learning at school.
Jodi Case has developed Learn, Grow, and Bloom, which is designed for parents with toddlers through pre-school with language and speaking, build pre–reading and math skills. Great Games, Better Brains is produced by Glenn Wiebe and Jaime Hendricks and helps parents explore the wild and woolly world of video games for their children, from an educational point of view. And finally, Kevin Honeycutt is featured in Raising Digital Kids. Kevin is a national presenter who often speaks on Internet safety and the use of technology by kids.
We are betting that, in the 21st century, the world will continue becoming a “pull” world. We believe that the use of “pull” approaches to learning will lead to real school change. Check out the website and see what you think. Can you imagine your school, or your classroom, or your children’s learning experience becoming customized and individualized through new technologies? – Steve Wyckoff
Teachers As Filters
Michael Kaechele from Michigan writes the blog Concrete Classroom and has an wonderful blog post called Teachers as Filters. As Mitch Wagner, for Computer World’s Tool Talk writes in a post titled A Simple Fix for Internet Censorship in Schools. Mitch states:
Schools and libraries are hurting students by setting up heavy-handed Web filtering software that block access to potentially educational sites. Instead, educators should trust teachers and librarians to oversee schools Internet access, says Craig Cunningham, a professor at National-Louis University.
I teach a class in the College of Education called Technology for Teaching and Learning to pre-service teachers. Unfortunately, my students most often see extreme filtering in the schools they do internships. In my class, I expose to them all kinds of cool stuff they can be doing in their classrooms and curriculum to integrate the use of technology. But sadly, they rarely witness examples in the real classrooms.
The filtering has really gone to extremes.
What happened to TRUST! Teachers are obviously trusted to teach the kids, and apparently not trusted to decided what is appropriate when it comes to using the internet in their classrooms. I know when my kids were old enough to drive, I did not just hand them the keys and say go, I sat beside them and taught them how to drive and navigate the highway safely. Hmm….. imagine that, teach them!
I encourage you to read Michael Kaechele solution.
Written by Lidija Davis / February 1, 2009 4:57 PM
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/8_tools_to_track_your_footprin.php
Last week we looked at how easy it is to leave footprints on the Web; today we’ll show you how easy it is to track them.
Although search engines provide a great starting point when you’re searching for someone online, with all of the new social sites that have popped up over the past few years, they’re often just not enough.
In our recent State of Blog Search 2009 post we discussed the various reasons you may choose to use any or all of the following blog search tools: Technorati, Google Blog Search, Ice Rocket, Ask.com Blogsearch, and FriendFeed. While these blog search engines are great to fill specific needs, they’re also another great place to look for your footprints on the Web.
However, you can drill down even more.
1. BlogPulse: Trends in the Blogosphere
Part of Nielsen-Online, BlogPulse highlights the top trends in the blogosphere and is mostly used to determine the hottest topics on the Web and how they got to be that way. But, its value as a personal monitoring tool can not be disregarded. Search for your name then grab the RSS feed to see who is talking about you and what they’re saying.
2. Pipl: Searching the Invisible Web
Pipl claims to search the deep or invisible Web to find documents, blog entries, photos, publicly available information that other search engines don’t serve up. It’s a great, fast search engine that we like; the only disadvantage is it offers no RSS feed.
3. Spy: Watching what Happens on the Web
According to the site, Spy can “listen in on the social media conversations you’re interested in.” This clean visualization search tool watches Twitter, FriendFeed, blog posts, Google reader shares and Flickr for any term you want. An RSS feed is available.
4. Serph: The Social Web Right Now
A brilliant tool for searching the social Web, Serph shows you what is being said about you “right now.” Serph gathers results from blog search engines, social media sites, social news sites and social bookmarking sites and offers an RSS feed for the results.
5. Social Mention: Mentions of your Name on the Social Web
Another great tool for searching the social Web, Social Mention offers a quick glance at mentions of your name on the Web. Just enter your name and switch between blogs, microblogs, bookmarks, comments, events, images, news or all of them at once. Slower than Serph, but occasionally offers different results. An RSS feed is available.
6. Monitter: Tracking Twitter
Monitter is one of the coolest looking monitoring tools for Twitter and one of the most useful. We’ve written about it before and although most people are using Twitter’s own search tool for search and alerts on Twitter, Monitter offers a little bit more. Giving you the option to search for three different keywords at once, Monitter is great if you want to keep your eye out for mentions of your name, your username and your company all at the same time. It also offers an RSS feed.
7. BoardTracker 2.0: The Ultimate Search Tool for Forums
BoardTracker is a forum search engine, message tracking and instant alert system that offers relevant results quickly. One of our favorite search tools for forums and message boards, BoardTracker currently tracks in excess of 1.2 billion posts.
8. Google Alerts: The big G
We couldn’t end this post without mentioning Google Alerts, although likely most of you are familiar with it. Although Microsoft and Yahoo have alert tools, Google’s offering beats them hands down. It offers e-mail and RSS alerts for any set of keywords including your name.
While we’re still waiting for that perfect product that will associate our names with our brands with our usernames, and send us the results instantly, we don’t expect to see it anytime soon (although we’ve got our fingers crossed), but we do hope that this list provides you with some alternatives to track your footprints across the Web.
If you’ve got a great tool you want to share, please let us know in the comments.
New From Common Craft!
Aimed at young or inexperienced Web users, this video explains the long term risks of sharing inappropriate information online. Protecting Reputations Online explains the risks of posting inappropriate pictures, videos, or messages about yourself online. The video also tells you what action to take if you do find something you don’t like about yourself online. You can watch the video on the Common Craft website.
