Banned in School — from The Innovative Educator by Lisa Nielsen
From DSC:
This item caught my eye because this very sort of thing prevented me from helping some of our remote student teachers this week. The schools that they were in did not permit access to the servers that provided web-based collaboration software. The reasons I picked up from the email-based correspondence was that the schools were concerned about the misuse of such technologies — based upon actual acts of digital vandalism they had occurred at their schools or other schools.
Though I understand the concerns of the administrations — especially in light of the litigious society that we live in — I couldn’t help but reflect upon how incredibly unfortunate that — again — a small percentage of bad apples ruins it for the rest of the students.
What can we do to promote better digital citizenship? Ethics? Morality?
I agree with Lisa when she asserts that it is no longer acceptable to have disconnected teaching and learning environments. It is not ultimately beneficial to ban teachers and students from the Internet.
P.S. If we can’t help our student teachers out in such matters, it makes change all the more difficult to implement.