As everyone is winding down for the holidays and getting ready for a much deserved winter break, I thought this would be a nice time to post this great email I received from a teacher who attended one of Day of Discovery trainings. I thought instead of just having one person give feedback, why not have the DEN community share their thoughts and ideas. I know 26,000 brains are better than one!
“I have a question/dilemma that is related to technology and kids. From the Discovery Education workshop I attended at SCCOE a few months ago, I came away with the impression that we should encourage children to become familiar with using the Internet and other technological tools such computers, cell phones, camera phones, digital cameras, etc. And I definitely agree!
I want to get straight to the point, so it comes down to kids and Myspace. I’ve come to realize that many students at my school are already on MySpace, so I decided to make my own page just for them and add them as “friends.” MySpace is sort of a taboo and when other teachers hear about their students having an account there, they are given a reprimand about why they should delete their account and that there are a lot of predators and stalkers online. I agree with that point to a certain extent; however, I have many more reasons to disagree.
There are two opposing views here. I have a MySpace account and truly believe children can benefit from the technological exposure. On the other hand, another teacher tells these same kids that it is not okay, for reasons of Internet safety, sexual predators, and inappropriate content, and so on.
So the question is, how would you suggest I address this issue to those teachers, my principal, the parents, and the kids about this? What should my reasons be to say that it is not all that bad to be on MySpace or the like? To what extent should I intervene with regards to the content the child should have on their page? Let them be themselves or speak up and say, “Change this, spell this correctly, delete that picture, etc.?”
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Feel free to post your comments, suggestions, any websites you would recommend, etc.