Learning Labyrinth

Over the past few weeks I have had the privilege and opportunity to participate in several thought-provoking and engaging discussions with parents in our school community surrounding the concern of Internet Safety and their children. After reflecting on these conversations, I have decided to republish a post that I wrote months ago in response to the PBS Frontline Special: Growing Up Online. I encourage you to read, watch the program (either in its entirety or just the areas of interest to you) and then respond via commenting on this blog post below. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and feelings surrounding this vitally important topic.

*** Original Blog Post ***

I don’t know if anyone else had the opportunity to watch PBS’s FrontLine Special: Growing Up Online that aired on Jan. 22, 2008. If you missed it, I strongly urge you to take the time and watch it. You can view the full video program series online here.

The program is phenomenal. That’s the only word I can think of to describe the way it hit me. It really opens your eyes as to what is happening out there in our students’ daily lives. The stories/chapters within the program truly amplify just how “out of touch” we are as, so called, “digital immigrants.” It blatantly points out the huge generation gap that continues to exist between adults and children growing up in this era.

So I wonder – how do we protect ourselves? our students? our children? But more importantly, how do we prepare them to live in an online world where there are no true “boundaries” or “rules”?

With all the activity happening online there are no immediate consequences to one’s actions. Kids will say things online that they will not say to a person’s face, for instance insults and threatening remarks. People will post pictures somewhere online for everyone to see that they would never show in real life. We ask ourselves why? One answer may be clear; we have inhibitions for a reason. There are certain places and situations where we should not tell dirty jokes, there are things that you do not allow others to see. However, the internet and online social networking permits and even encourages people to engage in what we have been taught not to do. People can talk nasty and dirty without knowing the hurt they caused by seeing the look on the other person’s face, or getting “red-faced” themselves. Knowing when it’s appropriate to cut into a conversation or when to just listen; knowing what you can say to your best friend verses what you can say to someone you hardly know are all social skills that are developed in “real-life” – face to face – society. The internet makes bullying, insulting, threatening, and picking on or making fun of someone easy to do. Yet, these same acts are very hard to do in person. Therefore, kids are turning to cyber space to engage in these hurtful, disruptive acts.

My questions still remain the same. What now? How do we prepare our students, children and each other to live “protected” and “safe” in an online world?

I know we (the “digital immigrants” – both parents and educators) need to embrace the tools that they (the “digital natives”) are using; including social networking sites (myspace.com/Facebook), blogs, wikis, IM, etc… I have never denied that fact. The first step is to embrace these tools and utilize them in the classroom and to our advantage, yes, but what are the next steps?

What about preparing our students/children to deal with the “dark side” of being online and clickable? How do we prepare “the future” to handle negative, but impactful, situations online? How do we teach ourselves and our students to live in a society where these factors are fundamentally a way of life?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 12:27 pm and is filed under digital+issues, internet+safety, lifelong+learning, privacy and online security. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.