The following is an article I wrote for our school newsletter. I also posted it on our school website.
On November 20, over 300 teachers and administrators from our school division attended the Leading and Learning conference in Red Deer. This conference is sponsored by the Central Alberta Regional Consortium, which is an organization devoted to creating effective PD for teachers in school divisions in Central Alberta.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Inspiring Learners,” focusing not only on how our children can be inspired to learn, but also on how the adults in their lives can be inspired to learn. After all, we are ALL learners, even after we leave formal education.
One of the keynote speakers was Will Richardson, who is a former teacher and now writes and speaks about implementing instructional technology, specifically those known as “read/write” web (blogs, wikis, social networking, etc). At the outside of his presentation, he said his intent was to disturb us and make us uncomfortable. Then he went on to challenge us about our use of technology in our teaching, and more specifically about how we are (or are not) teaching our children to use the technology responsibly and safely.
Richardson’s own wiki offers examples of how our children are using the Read/Write web on their own, often without adult direction. We want our kids to learn how to use these tools, but they are often not being taught *how* to use them appropriately.
The Junior High students in our school have been fortunate to be part of the Emerge 1-1 Laptop project for the past three years and they are learning some of the digital citizenship skills needed in their world. Really, what it all comes down to is two things (as pointed out by Alec Couros, another presenter at the conference): 1) Once you post it, you can’t take it back; and 2) Never assume anything online is private.
But unless the adults in their world are also conversant with the technology, it’s difficult for the children to get proper guidance regarding these two key concepts. Do they have a Facebook or MySpace page? If so, do they know how to change their privacy settings to protect their personal information?
Do YOU know how to change your settings? (If not, check out http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/02/facebook-privacy/ for an introduction to how you can protect yourself and your children).
If you want to try an interesting experiment, go to Google and put your own name (or your child’s name) in the search field and see what comes up. That is your (or your child’s) online identity, and it’s there for a very long time. Increasingly, employers and post-secondary registrars are searching online databases to see what they can learn about applicants. There have been instances where applicants have been screened out of positions because of their online identities, which relates back to Couros’s two points; you can’t take it back, and it’s never really private.
Learning to be part of the Read/Write web is more than just privacy issues. There’s also the issue of recognizing the validity of content on the web. What is legitimate? What is not? Consuming information is far more complex than when were kids when all we had were the books and encyclopedia in the library, and maybe the odd magazine or newspaper subscription. We now have access to information from all over the world. Everyone and anyone is an author. How do figure out what is good information and what is not? Again, these are skills we learn through practice.
Take the time to see what’s out there and learn how your kids are using the web. Then talk to them about it. Together, the home and school can help our children become critical consumers – and creators – of online content. We can’t afford not to.
