Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Safety on the Web
How does the 1:1 setting compound issues of safety when working on the web? What unique strategies do you utilize to ensure safety in your 1:1 environment? Are they working? What new strategies might you implement?
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4 comments:
When there are 20-30 computing devices in a classroom all being used by individuals, instead of one teaching workstation...obviously Internet Safety issues are compounded exponentially.
While we (in Watauga County) are not truly in a 1:1 environment yet, in computer labs and with mobile carts, we certainly are. We have a site license for Insight in order to more closely monitor and control what each class is working on. I know many schools are using classroom management software and we have tried a few. This one is very user friendly and I espcially like that you can limit certain resources for individual classes easily.
Another area that we must address as a district(which I have discussed before) is an updated student AUP and classroom practices. In addition, the article we read about firewalls "hits the nail on the head" when it comes to the difference between younger grades and high school students. We need to address this and I was vindicated to see the recommendation that a "local" technical person should have some control to respond to "firewall" exceptions on the spot.
In a 1:1 computing environment, students have the unique opportunity to have access to a computer at all times. While this is monumentally valuable to classroom purposes, it also exposes students to a certain amount of risk. Certainly, minors who are surfing the web for any purpose may stumble into dangerous online territory such as inappropriate websites, incorrect web content, or even web predators. This is in sharp contrast to the level of control over safety that a teacher has in a traditional classroom setting. One means to maintain the safety of students is to teach students media literacy skills. I always strive to help my students learn how to evaluate the credibility of sources. This certainly helps them understand the pitfalls of the web. However, this is an ongoing struggle. I still receive papers that have used inappropriate sources. I just try to constantly provide feedback to help my students improve their understanding of appropriate uses of the internet and computers.
I think there are some significant differences in the approach to the safety issues between the elementary and the high school setting. Even realizing that almost all high school students are minors, I think it is critical that we begin to treat them like adults. Many of them are already involved with open social networking sites or online gaming, yet we say in the classroom that we have to be careful what we do. I agree that we have to be careful, but I think as Nancy said in her post that the key AUP positions. We have to make students be responsible for what they are signing as acceptable use. I think we also have to alter those statements as students advance through the school system. What applies in one grade, may not be the correct approach the next year as students become more sophisticated with the uses of technology.
Along the same lines, I think it is critical that as we move to more 1 to 1 sites, that systems implement at clear and continuous program of training. It is crucial for a system to develop a technology plan and stick to that implementation. My example would be, why should we let each teacher use a different wiki site, PBwiki or WikiSpaces or whatever? I know that teachers are going to say "I want to do it my way," but that is not helping the students. Systems should develop one system and stick with it. So that a student who learns something in third grade doesn't have to learn a new system in fourth grade. It is sort of like saying why don't we teach Spanish this year and then switching to French the next. We need students to gain expertise in a system and be able to implement it faster and better as they progress through the grades. As Mrs. Murphy states, we have to give continuous feedback, but if it is always on a different system, then is it really continuous. We should be building on the early years not starting over every August.
Obviously a 1:1 environment compounds safety issues by shear numbers alone. Currently I have three computers in my classroom so controlling and monitoring what the students view is easy to facilitate. The difficulty arises when we visit the computer lab and I an trying to facilitate instruction while monitoring sites the students are viewing.
I think the tools we have been shown in this class can help ensure safety. An example of this would be Trailfire--having websites set up ahead of time so students don't need to 'surf the web.' Also creating sites like Voice Thread allows students a social network in an educational setting.
I agree with the previous posts and think we need to differentiate with filters and firewalls as students progress through the grades.
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