Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Teh-yuan Wan, Ph.D. on March 16, 2008 at 1:48pm

This is a critical topic of heated discussions with significant policy and practical implications for technology infuson into our schools' operation. While there are numerous laws and regulations calling for local efforts to project school-aged learners, more and more educational practitioners have come to the consensus that educating students to be safe, responsible, ethical Internet users should be the way to go rather than simply locking down or blocking almost all access for fear of potential legal tangling. It is important for the community of educational leaders and practitioners to engage in such dicussions, identify and develop practical strategies and solutions and inform policy-making process so that a balanced approach would be adopted take advantage of "the learning power of participatory web sites while ensuring students are protected and behave responsibly". It may not be a bad idea to educate students on the Internet safety and organize them to police the safe and appropriate usage of the Internet technologies.

In 2006, a legislation regarding instruction in the safe use of the Internet was added in section 814 of the NYS Education Law. The law states that school districts in the state need to provide students in grades kindergarten through twelve with curriculum and instruction designed to promote the proper and safe use of the Internet. And, it requires SED to provide assistance to school districts in developing such a curriculum. Recently, we have gathered some existing online resources on the topics of Internet Security and Internet Safe Usage and made them available to potential target users such as school administrators, teachers, medial specialists, students and parents. Please check it out and let us know how we can improve it and what other resources should be included:

http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/technology/EdTech/resources/securiuse.htm

Permalink Reply by Blanca Duarte Martini on March 16, 2008 at 4:05pm

Hello Teh-yuan.
I know of Conflict Resolution, Peacemaking and Peer Mediation curriculum being developed by a Nassau County district (and I'll bet there are others). Part of this curriculum includes a section on Cyberbullying. It is an extension of a Character Education grant that had been placed in the district. While there are many ways that Internet Safety can be approached, my question is how can we harness all the information that is available (say locally) to develop a curriculum where different aspects of school are interconnected (as they are). If we work under a broader umbrella of "Keeping Children Safe", then we could expand that concept into more focused areas, such as Internet Safety, School Security, Character Education, etc. and then people with expertise in those areas could share ideas about what happens now, what resources are available already and like you ask, what other resources should be included. In my work with the Intel Teach to the Future program, and others, curriculum framing questions can lead to deeper discussions about general topics (in this case of safety). A broad question like "Are We Safe?" or "How Secure Are We?" may lead discussion into areas of Internet Security as easily as it could Safety in Schools (if we are talking about the US and schools), Safety in Our Country (Global Studies / Science) and Data Security in an Information Age (ICT, Technology).

The design then, of a system that will provide some answers, could grow into something where collaborators can connect what is already in place with the new areas that need addressing. There are so many factors that impact safety in our schools and community. Where to begin?

Permalink Reply by Matthew Hejna on March 18, 2008 at 2:58pm

Where to begin indeed? As you know Blanca there is a current discussion on this topic on our NASTECH listserv. I think meaningful dialogues such as these need to take place and expanded to include our larger school communities. I think the discussion should include all web-based tools that allow students to create, collaborate and publish online.

The poster of the School 2.0 Learning Ecosystem (http://etoolkit.org/etoolkit/map) presented by Tim Magner, Director of the U.S. Dept. of Education Office of Technology is a useful visual tool for getting this point across.

"The Learning Ecosystem is at the heart of the conversation about the future of schooling and the goal of School 2.0. This is where teaching, learning, instruction and assessment take place and where school management, planning, staffing and design come together to create the next generation of schooling."

"In School 2.0, the learning ecosystem includes not just a school building, but the combination of home, school, and community that collaborates to bring the wider world into day-to-day instruction and provide a rich array of learning opportunities."

Within the learning ecosystem, the role of Technologist is described as a translator. "Help transform your community by bringing others into the technology conversation."

Each time I go to a conference or read an article or view a video on this topic I feel like I'm getting hit in the head with the message that there is a disconnect between their use of technology in their personal lives and what they are allowed to utilize in school--and the gap is constantly growing. I think I finally get it. I hope we can start taking steps to close the gap before it gets too large to address.

I think the using the curriculum framing questions you referenced might be an effective way to start having this discussion with our school communities.

Permalink Reply by Blanca Duarte Martini on March 19, 2008 at 11:11pm

Hello Matt,

Thank you for your reply. I couldn't agree more with the statement that you can help transform communities by bringing others into the technology conversation. Technology at a basic level allows for conversations to take place in forms such as email, im, and voice. Technology also allows streamlining of tasks that when automated, allow for critical thinking and analysis to take place. Technology allows for global exchange of ideas and a global workforce. It allows collaboration. In this day and age, the education of our students, both in the form of technology literacy and in the form of technology skillset, is crucial in their development as digitally responsible citizens of the 21st century. Their world (and ours) is a global one. Let me be the first to admit I don't know what that world will look like 5 years from now. Or in 10. Or in 20. An education for each and every child is one way the US can impact its future, by remaining as competitive as it can be. Safety issues are no longer just a concern in our neighborhoods. They are global ones. With information being exchanged on the Internet at the rate of XXXXX per minute, it is an issue needs to be dealt with. And soon.

I agree that conversations like the ones that we have been discussing through our NASTECH listserv provide opportunities that allow for analyzing and synthesizing to take place. I feel that as successful as we are in each of our districts, the sharing of information, questioning, and analyzing of the data we collect, will provide us deeper knowledge to make policies and create structures that will make our communities even stronger.

Project Safe Neighborhood is one organization that is dedicated to finding ways to ensure safety in our towns. Other organizations like Power to Learn have sections online where children can read about safety on the Internet. In Suffolk County, Computer Cop software, introduced last year, is made available to parents in the county to keep track of what children are doing on the Internet. I am sure there are other local initiatives that I don't know about and am wondering if anyone has any to share. Perhaps we could start a wiki off this ning site to collect resources and links from organizations around Long Island. Once there is a collection of resources, maybe we can evaluate what's available and make connections, starting with the State Education site that Teh-yuan brings to our attention in a previous post: http://www.emsc.nysed.gov/technology/EdTech/resources/securiuse.htm I'm excited about the possibility of what these conversations can bring about. What are some suggestions as to how we go about this?

Permalink Reply by Blanca Duarte Martini on March 23, 2008 at 8:52pm

Jenna,

Well said. I like the analogy that you make in terms of teaching children to cross the street. When talking about including others into conversations such as this one, thanks in part to technology, the forms of communication available today make it easier for a broad spectrum of people to engage in conversation than years past. In addition, the importance of keeping our children safe in this global society makes it impossible to ignore the lack of structure that we have in place now. The "untamed" Internet leaves our children open to vulnerability in almost the same way that leaving a child home alone with the door open, would.

I agree that it is important to keep the conversation open to all if we were going to design a system that is going to affect all of us (and all of our children). The saying "Two heads are better than one" is even more valid once the amount of people in a conversation grows. The children of today are our leaders, our workers, our decision makers and policy drivers of tomorrow. They are also our families, our grandchildren and our caretakers. The burden of giving them a support structure from which to learn from is dependent on us.

So let's go back to what we know. We know that there are endless resources in the mainstream Internet from which to choose from. We know that some districts have Safety Curriculum that deals with the Internet and some include Peer Mediation. Some companies on offer websites and tips for parents and children. Some curriculum has been put together and disseminated like iSafe. Some legislators have enacted policies locally to help support the cause as well.

Let's suppose we were to design this system using the Backward Design model of Wiggins and McTighe. In this design we work from what we want our end result to be first. Do we design our system to include all aspects of safety? Do we build in only safety on the Internet including sections like Cyberbulllying? What about resolving those conflicts? In order for children to be safe they need to know what to do when presented with situations that are unsafe. I know there are educators who have worked on these issues. Is there some way for all the information to be collected and a group to work on as all inclusive a solution as possible? I haven't started a wiki yet because I don't know how many people are familiar with it. We would however like to hear other's thoughts about this...

Permalink Reply by Teh-yuan Wan, Ph.D. on March 23, 2008 at 10:53pm

This is a wonderful discussion and a good demonstration of the need for a more coordinated efforts to address the issue of Internet Safety by proactively engaging in educating students to be safety-conscious, responsible and ethical users of the Internet technologies. Of course to successfully accomplish this objective, it will take substantial efforts from school administrators, technology leaders, library/media specialists, teachers, parents as well as students to do their respective parts as integral parts of the daily teaching and learning. As you all have articulated that it is the important and appropriate thing to do on top of every other critical things, Where to begin? You have already come up with great strategies and options. It seems to me that there is a need for for systemic approach with a great extent of coherence to ensuring that while students are protected students are empowered to be effective and responsible Internet users. Instead of getting everyone busy doing everything on their own, we need to get smart in terms of coordinating, sharing, and achieving the objective. Here are a list of things to be considered:

1. Clearly articulate and understand federal/state legislatary requirement and guideline
2. Integrate this part of curriculum and instruction into the district's technology plan with hardware, software, and instructinal strategies and implementation processes.
3. Coordinate statewide and regional efforts (teacher centers, model schools, school library/media centers) in developing/adopting curriculum, instructional materials and existing resources for adoption and implementation
4. Identify and modeling promising practices in empowering students to be safe and responsible Internet users
5. Continue to expand the LEAs capacity to keep internet safe and prepare students to be effective technology users.

This requires all stake holders to be involved in the coordination and collaboration from the state to the regional and all the way to the classroom. This is my late-at-night and simple list and open for improvement. Look forward to a more coherent plan list.

Permalink Reply by Teh-yuan Wan, Ph.D. on March 24, 2008 at 9:49am

So many wonderful implemetation ideas. This is a great example of why we need to get all stake holders at all levels and from different angles involved in developing systemic and coherent strategies to meet the challenge of Internet Safety. If "we" can put our heads together to come up with a relatively comprehensive and coherent Internet Safety initiative for a large scale adoption, it will help reduce significantly the amount of duplicated and incomplete development efforts at local school or classroom level. Then, more time will be devoted to the implementation and improvement of the initiative. Blanca, has a working group or committee from Teacher Centers been formed on this initiative as a result of your early March meeting?

In light of the "memorable" activities, I recently have been approached by Pokémon USA, Inc. with their digital content on Internet Safety as well as other MST-related materials. They claimed that they have been working with VA DOE on a statewide project and provided the web links. As you know VA is the state that stands out on the Internet Safety in terms of comprehensive policy and strategies. Here it is for you to take a look and let me know what you think. I have not got a chance to get more info on this and no specific idea on how to proceed this line of conversation yet. I would appreciate your review and input on this: (please note this is a commercial content and targets lower grade levels)

http://www.pokemonlearningleague.com/internet/index.html

Permalink Reply by Blanca Duarte Martini on August 16, 2008 at 8:28pm

Hi Teh-yuan, Jenna, Matt and others,

Last we discussed Internet safety in NYS, we were talking about how to move forward, reviewing considerations, and beginning a larger discussion with other stakeholders. In light that school is almost back in full swing, that more schools that ever are placing computers into the hands of students and allowing Internet access, and that technology literacy conversations that have been strong since last year, this is probably a good time to start them again…

I’ve put together a list of assumptions to add to the list of considerations that Teh-yuan created (thank you Teh-yuan) and am debating moving this to a Google Docs or wiki to make it easier to lay out. Here is the initial list, please feel free to add/change:

Assumptions:
• We know that NYS districts must comply with Section 814 of the NYS Ed law and Chapter 526 (2006).
• We know that NYS (like other states) has an Internet Security Resource and an Internet Safety Page available for free on the NYSED website.
• We know the conversation about Technology Literacy Standards has begun to take place in NYS BOCES and local districts.
• We know that some schools have placed Internet Safety information on their websites.
• We know that some schools have not placed Internet Safety information on their websites.
• We know that some schools have put Cyber-Bullying curriculum into practice.
• We know that no school has been cited for not complying with the Internet Safety curriculum yet (but I am not sure whose responsibility this will ultimately be OSC?)
• We know that some of the conversations surrounding Technology Literacy include curriculum in the classroom but not necessarily Internet Safety.
• We know that technology is not only used in general classrooms but in special areas where Internet Safety issues may be different.
• We know that technology is not only used in schools but in libraries, homes, and friend's houses.
• We know that we need to do something to try and collect, disseminate this information in NYS to all schools.

I am looking forward to having more conversations about IS and ICT curriculum this year. Hope you all had a restful summer!