Living in the 4th Screen

Exploring the use of mobile technology in education and life

Text Ed for 7th graders

Text Education is coming to Canadian schools in the form of TextEd curriculum. This Times-Colonist online article reports that during the month of January 100 seventh grade classrooms across Canada will begin implementing the new curriculum. The remainder of schools will implement the program in September 2010.

The article reports:

The initiative, thought to be the first of its kind in Canada, aims to address what police call "an education gap" that's made young people vulnerable to a swath of text-related risks.

"It doesn't even have to pertain to an adult offender; we're seeing so much harm come to adolescents within their own peer circle, whereby they're sending nude images or inappropriate messages (by phone), and those are being transferred to a larger group of individuals," says Signy Arnason, who works with the Centre for Child Protection.

According to some recent research more and more students are engaging in this kind of behavior:

A recent report by the Pew Research Center found 15 per cent of youth aged 12 to 17 had received sexually suggestive photos or videos on their personal cellphones. A similar survey for LG Electronics last year suggested the number is even higher, with 22 per cent of teens claiming to have received a naked picture on their mobile phone.
 
The article implies that teachers have not been trained to address the issues surrounding the explosion of electronic devices and that the new curriculum is trying to close that gap. The curriculum consists of three lesson plans consisting of 40 - 90 minutes each.

I think a full scale approach like this during the junior high years is a good idea. By the time students reach high school it is too late to be addressing some of these issues. Parents also need to be alerted to the problems cell phones and iPods can cause in the life of their teenage children. I recommend having an evening where parents come to the school and are educated about the potential problems that exist with today's mobile technology. At the same time we need to accentuate the positive elements of the new technology and how it can be used to assist their children in school and beyond.

As Bernard Lord, president of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, was quoted as saying:

"The technology is here to stay, so we have to teach kids to use it properly." 

A Thin Line - MTV and Digital Abuse

MTV has created a website to assist teens dealing with digital abuse. The website covers topics such as sexting, constant messaging, digital abuse, and spying. Each of these topics is defined and the website lays out specific steps to take to avoid these problems. It offers advice on how to get help with any of these problems. Anyone who has teenagers or works with them know what an important part their cell phone plays in their life. I applaud MTV for setting up this site.

There is a 9 question quiz for students to take to see if they are involved in "Digital Drama", as the website labels it. I have embedded the quiz below.

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Access vs Security - Where does your school fit on the balance?

In this Education Week article it talks about a school in Trussville, Alabama school that allows open access to You Tube, Google searches, online chat, blogging, and other forms of social networking or Web 2.0 tools. In many, if not most schools, this would be considered anathema. This raises the question of access versus security. How much access do you allow students and faculty without compromising security of the network and vital information.

When I was the technology coordinator for a school district we had no filters on the internet (The district was a high school only district). Students and faculty had unfettered access to the entire World Wide Web. I wanted to put monitoring software on the internet pipe so that we could see exactly what was happening but I left the district for a different position prior to a decision being made. Since there was no filter on the internet it required our teachers to be vigilant when they used computers with their classes. They could not let their guard down and that is one good reason against using filters. In some schools teachers think they do not have to monitor students when they use the schools computers because the network has filters.

On my home network I use a filter to protect my own children. I also keep the computer in a centrally located place and have talks with my children about responsible use. I must admit that it is frustrating at times when innocuous websites get blocked and I have to disable the filter.

Scott Mcleod, a technology blogger and the Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education, posted this on his Mind Dump blog:

Justin Reich, a former high school teacher and a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, writes that filters are especially skilled at blocking out one group of Internet users at schools: teachers. Students, he says, know how to get around the filters, while teachers have no idea how to go about accessing blocked material online.

Students for the most part can get around filters. But that is only part of the problem. Many students are coming to school with a web-enabled cell phone or smartphone and they do not need to use the schools network to access the web. How do you monitor their web surfing habits while on school grounds?

What should school districts do to protect their students, protect the district from liability, and not impede the educational process? The Education Week article says this about the school in Alabama and the approach they have taken to address the access vs security problem:

...in Trussville and other like-minded school systems, educators and school boards are instead expanding access to online resources, including social-networking sites, for students and teachers. Instead of blocking the many exit ramps and side routes on the information superhighway, they have decided that educating students and teachers on how to navigate the Internet’s vast resources responsibly, safely, and productively—and setting clear rules and expectations for doing so—is the best way to head off online collisions.

I am a strong proponent of educating students and parents in responsible use when it comes to technology and I like the approach the school in Alabama is taking, but I am not sure if that is enough. I would like to see ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, create a .K12 domain for schools. Higher education institutions all have .edu domains for their web addresses. Why can't we create a .K12 domain and require strict rules and oversight for allowing anyone to create a website using the domain? If all school related sites created a .K12 domain then it would be very easy to restrict access to those websites. I am sure Google would find it in their best interest to create a .K12 Google website along with the other major web players. I don't know anyone at ICANN to bring my idea to, but if you know of anyone please pass along my idea. In the meantime there are some good discussions to be had around this topic in school districts as mobile internet devices proliferate across the country.