Learning and Leading - December 2008/January 2009

BLOGGERSbeat

Appropriate Use or Inappropriate Restrictions?

If you read a lot of ed tech blogs, you might get the impression that everyone agrees tech tools should be incorporated into the K–12 curriculum. Podcasts, wikis, social networking, and MUVEs are lauded as great educational tools to engage digital natives.

Same goes for You Tube, Flickr, Twitter, cell phones, and even (gasp!) games like Spore. When used e ectively, such tools teach 21^st-century skills, reinforce inquiry-based learning, and satisfy National Educational Technology Standards.

If you are part of this enlightened set, you probably yawned or even smirked upon reading the Pew Internet report this fall that found that kids love gaming. e study concluded that “virtually all American teens play computer, console, or cell phone games and that the gaming experience is rich and varied, with a signi cant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement.”

You knew that. We all know that. You probably also know that games designed to teach concepts from algebra to environmental responsibility are commonplace.

But did you know this? Many districts’ appropriate use policies (AUPs) actually forbid some of these very tools. And many districts block these sites even from teachers and administrators.

Scott McLeod, who writes the blog Dangerously Irrelevant, discovered that fact during his daughter’s Back to School Night. McLeod, who is the director of the Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education, was torn about signing the AUP. In part, it read:

Inappropriate use includes but is not limited to online chatting, shopping, social networking sites (myspace. com, facebook.com, etc.), games, youtube.com …

He was outraged at the “categorical determination” that computer games, You Tube, social networking sites, and online chats are considered inappropriate use.

But what could he do? Not signing would have made computers off limits to his fifth grade daughter. So he signed but added a comment stating his strenuous objection. Then he asked what others thought. He got 15 comments, mostly from like-minded educators decrying such policies.

Two weeks later, Will Richardson wrote in Weblogg-ed about his frustration with Web lters that block such sites at Gmail, Google Earth, and You Tube.

Blogger Doug Johnson created this image to draw attention to Banned Bytes Week. He writes the Blue Skunk blog.

Richardson’s blog entry garnered 93 comments and was cited on 18 blogs. Some commenters blamed CIPA, a federal law that requires ltering; others blamed controlling IT departments, school boards, and administrators. Others said teachers should be more assertive about demanding that sites be unblocked. Here’s a sampling:

In my presentations lately, I’ve been reminding admin types that THEY are in charge of the library—not the IT department.

—David Lee King, librarian

If we can’t trust teachers with their own lter override, how can we trust them with our kids?

—Kern Kelley, teacher

I agree that teachers should be allowed better access; however, I don’t think that the students should. I think that the access would be more of a distraction for the students….

—Aaron H., student

One of the teachers I work with requested to have Google Earth downloaded onto her computer. e response from the IT was no, because then everyone would want it. Well, duh!