Blogg-Ed Indetermination

It’s time for schools to re-examine their student cell phone policies.

Last year, the New York Times reported that a New York court affirmed the right of the Department of Education to ban (not restrict, not regulate, but ban) student cell phones from schools.

The following month, the New York Sun reported on how teachers, students, and parents see the use of cell phones in the classroom as of great benefit.

The State of Utah is requiring schools to adopt a cell phone policy, and have created two model policies. [1] [2] Let’s hope that schools choose an enlightened route.

And while I know that Google search returns are not a reliable means of measuring much, searching for student cell phones cheating returns over a million results. And yet, performing well on tests leads some schools to reward students with… wait for it… a cell phone!

Are you confused about the proper role of cell phones in schools?

Cell phones are no longer just about talking on the phone. Cell phones are portable computers, multimedia players, PDAs, game systems, cameras, and web browsers. I use my iPhone for all of theses things and as a flashlight, a level, and GPS.

Ban cellphones? Just say no! We have to embrace these devices!

Will cell phones lead some students get off task? Well, let’s see. Do some students daydream? Do they pass notes? Do they absentmindedly doodle in their notebooks? Do they fake attention while secretly retiring to their own thoughts and fantasies? Do students fall asleep in mid-lecture?

The cell phone is not a culprit in off-task behavior. Yes, such devices can be addictive for some students (and adults, I should hasten to add.) American Idol is addictive for some. (Thank God I’m not one.)

Educators are smart people. We can figure this out. Especially if we enlist students in helping us think about cell phones and if we use our own phones for more than (gasp!) making phone calls. (E.T. Twitter home!)

Schools, including my own, should take a look at their cell phone policies and probably just throw them out. Incorporate cell phones into your overall school acceptable use policy. And if you’ve not looked at your AUP in while, it’s time to dust that off, too. Take a look at my previous post, From Acceptable to Honorable, to see one suggestion to approaching this.

Many moons ago (1962 to be exact), Helen Gurley Brown, the then editor of Cosmopolitan Magazine, published Sex and the Single Girl, which went on to be a best-seller and eventually made into a movie. In many ways it was to the sixties what Sex and the City was to the 2000’s, a manifesto about the sexual freedom of women.

Almost fifty years after the publication of Sex and the Single Girl and just a few years after the airing of the last episodes’ of HBO’s Sex and the City, we now have young women who have very different attitudes about sexuality than perhaps even Brown or Carrie and her posse might imagine; one in which sexually charged text messages (aka “sexting”), including nude photos, is becoming commonplace amongst teens.

Or at least this is the thesis in a wonderful article by Slate columnist Dalia Lithwick, which also appears in this week’s Newsweek magazine. Lithwick describes the conundrum facing parents, school officials, and law enforcement when teens send, receive, and sometimes distribute nude photos of one another. None of us are equipped to deal with this using conventional rules, regulations, or law. And as for the students, as Lithwik says, “We seem to forget that kids can be as tech-savvy as Bill Gates but as gullible as Bambi.”

Right on, Dalia! It would be far too easy to overreact, as some have done, by charging these children with child pornography. (Ironic, no?) As for kicking these kids out of school, they need to be in school where they have a support system to learn how to deal with dumb mistakes.

There are dumb criminals who deserve to be punished, and then there are dumb acts that deserve consequences. As adults, it is incumbent upon us to be able to distinguish between the two and act with justice and compassion in each case.  We know that always holding children to adult standards of conduct is not developmentally defensible. Adults have every right to be concerned and offended by sexting by their children. How we respond more about ourselves and our maturity as it does about our children’s.

In a previous post, I reviewed Generation Text: Raising Well-Adjusted Kinds in an Age of Instant Everything by Michael Osit, and promised to follow-up with a review of a  new text from ISTE, Raising a Digital Child: A Digital Citizenship Handbook for Parents, by Mike Ribble.

Judging by the title, one might think that these books might be redundant. But they are not, for reasons that I will describe below. Both deserve a place on the educational technologist’s bookshelf, but for different reasons.

Ribble’s book is based on his previous volume from ISTE, Digital Citizenship in Schools. It takes the themes he developed there and extends them to the family.

Ribble’s central tenet is that we need to teach students how to be digital citizens, and that such citizenship is comprised of nine elements. These nine elements, in turn, may be broken into three categories.

HOME AND COMMUNITY

• Digital Access: full electronic participation in society.
• Digital Commerce: the buying and selling of goods online.
• Digital Communication: the electronic exchange of information.

HOME AND SCHOOL

• Digital Literacy: the capability to use digital technology and knowing when and how ot use it.
• Digital Etiquette: the standards of conduct expected by other technology users.
• Digital Law: the legal wrights and restrictions governing technology use.

HOME

• Digital Rights and Responsibilities: the privileges and freedoms extended to all digital technology users, and the behavioral expectations that come with them.
• Digital Health and Wellness: the elements of physical andd psychological well-being related to digital technology use.
• Digital Security: the precautions that all technology users must take to guarantee their personal safety and the security of the network.

What I like about Ribble’s approach is that it is “not simply a list of rules… but ideas and guidelines for thinking about technology.” This is consistent with my school’s alternative approach to “acceptable use” policies for students, which eschews a long list of “thou shalt nots” (and the regular need to amend the list as technology changes) and instead focuses on “honorable use.” Learning how to think about technology is also consistent with the new concept of “digital wisdom” espoused by Mark Prensky.

In the not-so-distant past, parents could rely upon their own experience as children and teens, and the guidance of their adult mentors, to help them navigate the challenges of childhood and adolescence. But parents today often lack experience in social networking, collaborative web technologies, text messaging, blogs, wikis, and other elements of the technology landscape so familiar to their children. Without context and the practical experience that comes from the mistakes, parents have little experience to inform their intuition and therefore be able to act as competent, wise coaches for their children. Lacking such experience, parents may be clueless about what their children are doing, think that everything on the Internet is harmful or dangerous, or abdicate all responsibility for digital education to the schools. There are obvious shortcomings to each of these approaches.

The only approach that has really makes any sense is to engage your child in conversation and practice about technology, learning as much as you can about the technology yourself by participating in it, and talking with other adults (parents and teachers) about technology.

Ribble describes a four stage process for parents to address digital citizenship:

1. Awareness
2. Guided Practice
3. Modeling and Demonstration
4. Feedback and Analysis

My experience is that most approaches to parent education about the technology use of children stop at stage 1, Awareness. This may be followed by (2) hand wringing, (3) installation of blocking software and/or keystroke capture software, and (4) lectures about the perils of the internet. Ribble’s model makes much more sense.

I am particularly fond of the idea of parents practicing with their children, and then modeling for their children, the responsible use of technology. I wish Ribble’s chapter on this model went into more detail about this process.

And this leads me to my major caveat about this book. Raising Digital Children will work best, I think, when used as a textbook in a parent education class led by an experienced educator. There are many open-ended questions that beg for an opportunity for parents to discuss among themselves before bringing these questions to their children. Similarly, while I believe it is instructive for parents to learn something about technology from their children, I also believe there is safety and security to be had when a group of parents learn how to create a Facebook account together, from another adult who knows about things like recommended security and privacy settings.

Taken together, Raising a Digital Child and Generation Text are two different yet compatible takes on the role parents have to play in rearing children in a digital age. The former would make a wonderful text for a class on the subject, while the latter would make an excellent companion reader.

For some time I have been reading about the challenges social networking present to schools. Not the students in school, mind you. They have taken to social networking like ducks to water. But the adults are a different story and are largely playing catch-up. Some schools have responded by banning all of use social networking by students and employees. Others (a small number) are using social networking tools in interesting ways. Most seem to be in the middle, engaged in much hand wringing and asking colleagues in other schools:

• What are YOU doing about Facebook and MySpace?
• Do you have a policy we can look at?
• Our faculty and staff are asking for guidance in this area. What do we tell them?

I don’t have the answer. But I do have some opinions, and I’d like to float them here to see what others have to say about them and then, in the best of social networking tradition, incorporate your suggestions into something that I can run by my colleagues. So here goes.

Proposed Guidelines for Use of Social Networks by School Faculty and Staff*

New technologies, such as social networking tools, provide exciting new ways to collaborate and communicate. Nevertheless we must exercise care to be sure we use such tools with students in ways that are both age-appropriate and consistent with the mission of the school.

School faculty and staff are expected to behave honorably in both real and virtual (online) spaces. Activities which are improper, unethical, illegal, or which cause undue discomfort for students, employees, parents, or other members of the school community should be judiciously avoided in both physical space and cyberspace.

To that end, we offer the following guidelines for school employees who use online social networking applications which may be frequented by current or former students.

1. COURSE USE OF SOCIAL NETWORKING: In order to provide equal, age-appropriate access for students to course materials, faculty should limit class activities to school-sanctioned online tools. New social networking tools and features are being continually introduced which may or may not be appropriate for course use. The same care must be taken in choosing such tools as other tools and support materials.
2. MODEL APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR: Exercise appropriate discretion when using social networks for personal communications (friends, colleagues, parents, former students, etc.) with the knowledge that adult behavior on social networks may be used as a model by our students.
3. FRIENDING ALUMNI: Accept social network friend requests only with alumni over the age of 18. Do not initiate friend contacts with alumni.
4. UNEQUAL RELATIONSHIPS: Understand that the uneven power dynamics of the school, in which adults have authority over former students, continues to shape those relationships.
5. OTHER FRIENDS: Remind all other members of your network of your position as an educator whose profile may be accessed by current or former students, and to monitor their posts to your network accordingly. Conversely, be judicious in your postings to all friends sites, and act immediately to remove any material that may be inappropriate from your site whether posted by you or someone else.
6. GROUPS IN YOUR SOCIAL NETWORK: Associate with social networking groups consistent with healthy, pro-social activities and the mission and reputation of the school, acting with sensitivity within context of a diverse educational environment in which both students and adults practice tolerance and accept competing views.
7. PRIVACY SETTINGS AND CONTENT: Exercise care with privacy settings and profile content. Content should be placed thoughtfully and periodically reviewed to maintain this standard.
8. MISREPRESENTATION: Faculty who use social networks should do so using their own name, not a pseudonym or nickname.
9. PUBLIC INFORMATION: Recognize that many former students have online connections with current students, and that information shared between school adults and former students is likely to be seen by current students as well.

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*Some of the ideas for this list come from a Facebook group I belong to, Faculty Ethics on Facebook. It is geared towards higher education, and so if you stumbled upon this post and really want to read about colleges and universities, head on over to Facebook. I also appreciate colleague Matt Montagne’s feedback via Google Docs on an earlier draft of these ideas.

In Isaac Asimov’s sci-fi novel, The Naked Sun, he imagines a world in which personal human contact with one another is taboo. When Earth detective Elijah Bailey arrives on the planet Solaria to investigate a murder and insists on face-to-face interviews with people he causes no end of consternation.

In Dr. Michael Osit’s book, Generation Text: Raising Well-Adjusted Kinds in an Age of Instant Everything, he reports “when a high school student wants to talk to a friend on the other side of the school cafeteria, he may be more inclined to call or text the friend on his cell phone than to walk across the room…. It’s not uncommon for kids to spend more time relating to machines than to each other…”

One wonders, or at least I can imagine Dr. Osit wondering, if the technologies that our youth are so rapidly adopting and conversant with is a foreshadowing of Asimov’s Solarian society in which human intercourse (yes, that kind, too) is depersonalized and machine-mediated.

I found Osit’s book to be alternately frustrating and satisfying. By the end of it I determined that I liked is more than I thought I would at the beginning, and that any differences we may share about the subject of Internet use by today’s teens is a matter of perspective, similar to whether one sees a glass as half-empty or half-full. I attribute this to Dr. Osit’s profession as a child psychologist who spends a great deal of time with troubled teens, and in that role is exposed to clients whose Internet addictions and practices may be part of a larger dysfunctional family or personality. Spending more time with well-adjusted kids may temper his fear about the effect of the Internet and technology a bit.

To be fair, Osit’s book is more than just about technology. At its heart it is a book about parenting children in the 21st century, and the technology tools available to them are just part of the culture (Western, particularly American culture) in which they live. This culture presents special challenges:

• an overabundance of choices
• a sense of entitlement and immediate gratification
• addictive behaviors (for some) associated with electronic services and devices
• a lowering of the ages at which children engage in activities previously thought appropriate only for adults
• children who know much more about technology than their parents
• a conflation of self-worth and possessions and of wants versus needs
• child-centered families that have led to an erosion of appropriate parental expectations for children; parenting by guilt
• more individual activities and the cost of less time spent as a family
• learned helplessness and a lack of self-reliance among children
• blurred boundaries between appropriate personal and online behaviors
• adult models (or lack thereof) that demonstrate mature, responsible, and ethical relationships and technology use

The author acknowledges that despite these challenges, “The good news is that the basis of effective parenting is really the same as it has ever been.. Once you establish a strong foundation of tried-and-true traditional methods, you will be well on your way to effectively parenting your nontraditional Generation Text child.” So apparently while technology has presents us adults with  unprecedented parenting challenges, it’s really a lack of proper parenting techniques that contributes to the problem. The list of these “tried-and-true” parenting methods will sound familiar to many of us:

• agreement between parents as to proper behavior on their part and that of their children
• boundaries for child behavior and consequences for straying from those boundaries
• assertiveness and flexibility
• active parenting that keeps you connected with youth culture
• communicating with your child about choices, helping them gain perspective, talking about tough subjects
• help children become better stewards of their time and privacy
• encouraging appropriate individuation with teens
• communicating with other parents, especially those of your children’s friends,
• adjusting your parenting based on each individual child’s needs and personality

I was really pleased to se that Osit includes a chapter for parents on “How to Make Technology Work For You,” and “find[ing] ways to emphasize the positive aspects of technology and [to] use them to our advantage as we help our children navigate into adulthood.”

Ironically, given how the preceding eight chapters is largely comprised of stories about the dangers of technology, Osit advises parents to “let go of their fear that all those electronic, Internet-connected gadgets only have the ability to harm and endanger their kids.” This means that parents need to learn about the sites and technologies their children are using, so that “It is not just about fighting off the evils. It is about facilitating your child’s growth so that she becomes a happy, healthy adult.” The author then goes on the suggest ways in which parents and children can work cooperatively using technology, good sites for age appropriate Internet activities and reference, and speaking with about and sharing with your children interesting technologies and web sites.

As educational technologists, we are often asked by parents about social networking, IMing, Internet pornography, and related issues. Many parents are unsure of what to do, or even where to start. Generation Text: Raising Well-Adjusted Kinds in an Age of Instant Everything is a good place for parents to start, and one that I can and will recommend to parents.

I expect delivery from a new book from ISTE entitled Raising a Digital Child and will publish a review on this blog at a later date.

Many schools are struggling to keep pace with student use of Web 2.0, wireless handhelds, and smart phones. They are concerned about keeping students as safe (see previous post) and well-behaved on-line as well as off-line. And because we have less influence over the online lives of students, we often rely on filtering or keystroke monitoring software on the technical side, and “acceptable use policies” (AUP) on the human side.

Until this last year, our school had what many of us believed to be a model AUP. It’s reproduced below:

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Technology Acceptable Use Policy
All students have access to email, the Internet, and other information resources through computers in the classrooms, library, or computer labs. Access to these resources is a privilege, not a right. It is the responsibility of the student to make appropriate use of such resources to support learning. Inappropriate use may result in suspension of privileges, Judicial Committee action, or legal action.

Many teachers use email and our web site to post student assignments and other class materials. In addition, the school administration, club advisors, and others use email to communicate important information to students. Students are expected to check their email accounts at least daily.

This policy applies to all electronic devices used to access our network or used on oour campus, whether or not they are owned by us. Students who bring personal computers or hand-held devices to school should read the special restrictions on their use below.

Notice: The Technology Department uses software that enables it to support users by controlling and monitoring computer activities over our network.

Appropriate use:

• Use of computers, software, and other information resources to support learning, complete school assignments, and gain a better understanding of information technologies and their applications.
• Use of technology to collaborate with students and faculty in academic and extracurricular school functions.
• Use of file servers to store school-related and personal files.
• Use of the Internet to perform research related to academic and extracur­ricular school functions, and to communicate with scholars, students, and specialists outside of campus to improve knowledge and advance academic work.

Inappropriate use:

Any use not specified in “appropriate use,” shown above. Some examples include but are not limited to:

• Accessing the account or password of another, or in any way invading her/his privacy.
• Misrepresenting your age, name, school affiliation, or other personal information in order to gain access to age-restricted online services (e.g., Facebook, MySpace).
• Misrepresenting the school or yourself in any form of electronic communication.
• Deliberately deleting information (e.g. computer files or email) in order to conceal or camouflage inappropriate computer use.
• Failing to properly protect equipment loaned to the student by the school from damage or theft.
• Plagiarizing any material using information technology.
• Conducting any form of illegal activity using information technologies.
• Violating copyright or any contractual agreement between the school and any other entity.
• Using information technologies for communications that are judged to be obscene, libelous or slanderous, invade the rights of others, incite students to violence, or contribute to the substantial disruption of the orderly operation of the school. This includes email, instant messaging, personal websites, blogs, and other forms of electronic written communication directed at the community, even if the messages originate off campus.
• Using information technology to store, transmit, or duplicate copyrighted material.
• Installing on school computers, or, while on campus with personal computers, using distributed network client software (such as SETI@Home) and peer-to-peer sharing (such as Kazaa or Limewire).
• Installing or using computer games during school hours or at anytime in the library; all game players must release a computer to any student who needs it for schoolwork.
• Using information technology for financial or commercial activities not specifically authorized by the school or its agents.
• Deliberately degrading or disrupting the performance of any information technology device or system.
• Unauthorized use or modification, in any form, of electronic data created by another user.
• Gaining unauthorized access to data, services, or networks outside of school.
• Using information technologies to receive, store, generate, or distribute spurious or objectionable information of any kind, including chain letters.
• Posting anonymous messages.
• Distributing, forwarding, or posting personal communications of another without the author’s consent.
• Using information technologies for anything deemed to be wasteful of school resources. School resources include such things as consumable supplies such as paper, toner, ink, or limited resources including network bandwidth and server storage.
• Recording or photographing classroom presentations or campus events without the teacher’s permission.

Inappropriate use is also defined as that which might either intentionally or unin­tentionally compromises the privacy and safety of students, including:

• Posting of personal contact information about yourself or others on the Internet, including address, telephone number, school or work address.
• Agreeing to physically meet someone you have contacted, or who has contacted you online without parental consent.
• Not promptly disclosing to a teacher or other school employee any mes­sage you receive that is inappropriate or makes you feel uncomfortable.
• Using full names, student email addresses or likenesses of students in any form of electronic communication without express parental and teacher permission.
• Use of information technologies and resources is at your own risk. The school will not be held responsible for damages resulting from loss of information through the use of its network.

Since some information accessible through the network is controlled by other entities, Castilleja School will also not be held responsible for damages suffered as a result of inaccurate or undesirable information obtained through the network. In addition, there is no guarantee of privacy associated with your use of Castilleja School technology resources. School administrators, faculty, or members of the technology department, with or without warning, may access your email or file server accounts at any time.

Restrictions on the Use of Personal Computer and Hand-held Devices

Students who bring personal computers or hand held network devices for use on campus must register their equipment with the Technology Department.

Any personal computer that accesses our network in any way must have anti-virus software installed.

By signing the Student and Parent Handbook Agreement, you agree to abide by the rules and regulations stated above and by such rules as may be added over time by school administrators.

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The authors of the Old Testament could not have done a better job of creating a list of “Thou Shalt Nots” than this. And when any new technology came along that was not covered by the prohibitions, we simply create a new “Thou Shalt Not.”

What’s wrong with this picture, aside from:

• most students (and adults) didn’t read it,
• we were continually assessing whether or not a new technology was “covered” by the policy,
• it put the adults in the community into roles they were not prepare for, and
• did little to encourage students to think about their online behavior and make rationale decisions, a skill which would prepare them for lives as adults in an increasingly connected world?

So this year, we took a different tack. Instead of a list of Thous Shalt Not, we moved to a one sentence, Thou Shalt:

Students are expected to apply our Honor Code to all school activities, including those involving the use of the school’s computers, computer peripherals, and network, whether accessing them while on campus or off campus.

Simply elegant. Asking students for honorable behavior is so much better than telling them what not to do. And the fact the our school’s Honor Code was authored by students, means that it carries a lot of weight with them.

Now, to be fair, I did create some examples of honorable behavior that are listed on our Web Site for students to reference. This was done to provide discussion starters for use in advisories and classrooms, and to serve as a transition from a very detailed list of prohibited activities to one that relies on student judgment and values.

Better? I think so. But I look forward to a time when we won’t even need a list of “honorable uses.” Perhaps, over time, we will eliminate it. For now, it seems to be a good transition piece for us.

“Is it safe?” is the iconic line from the 1976 movie thriller Marathon Man starring Dustin Hoffman (as Thomas Levy) and Sir Laurence Olivier (as Christian Szell). Szell, a former Nazi war criminal with millions stashed away in diamonds, mistakenly believes that Levy is the key to his escaping the U.S. with his fortune. Using torturous dental techniques that only masochist Arthur Denton could love, he tries to coerce Levy into into revealing knowledge he does not have, repeatedly asking him:

“Is it safe?”

The Bogey man thirty plus years later is the Internet but the question remains: “Is it safe?” This is especially true when talking about the Internet and children.

And there wouldn’t be much of a story here if the Internet was totally benign. Thus it is that dozens of books, web sites, consultants, speakers, and talk shows warn us of the dangers of the Internet. Millions watch as television news shows capture Internet predators and expose them to public humiliation and criminal prosecution. Security firms capitalize on the resulting anxieties of the public (and especially parents), resulting in the sales of millions of dollars of products and services each year to answer the question:

“Is it safe?”

“Yes, but only if you use [fill in the blank and our annual subscription to keep you safe].”

Safe Practices for Life Online: A Guide for Middle and High School Students by Doug Fodeman and Marje Monroe asks the same question, but their answer might surprise you.

“It is safe?”

“Yes. If you use your head.”

In twelve chapters they outline ideas and lesson starters teachers can use to help students make wise decisions in choosing screen names and passwords, responding to cyberbullies, safeguarding personal information, and avoiding online scams. They explain how cookies work, how phishing scams appear to be legitimate, the pros and cons of instant messaging, social networking, urban legends, information literacy, and hoax web sites. I suspect that many teachers reading this book will come away with practical knowledge that they, too, can put to work in protecting their own online interactions.

Each chapter ends with five or more exercises that teachers can use with their students to explore a topic in greater depth. Some exercises are pretty lame, such as those that ask students to use Google to help define computer terms. The better ones are much more expansive, based on case studies, simulations, and thoughtful questions that could really engage mature students in substantive discussions. As is the case with any such lessons, their success lies in the ability for teachers to create a safe (no pun intended) non-judgmental classroom in which all points-of-view are allowed and preaching is minimized.

What I really like about this book is that I think it can be used to empower students to make rational choices.

A metaphor:

When you live by the ocean, you teach your children how to swim. You teach them how to play on the beach and in the water safely and responsibly. You let them know when they need to have an adult around, and what to do if there’s a problem. They learn how to read the currents and the skies. As your children grow you, too, grow more confident in their skills and maturity. Eventually your children reach an age where they can swim without your direct supervision. You can ask them “Is it safe?” and be confident that they will answer truthfully and correctly.

This book is like that. It can help students become safe in the ocean of cyberspace..

On rare occasions the authors are a bit too heavy handed for my taste, such as the blanket statement that parents should “Forbid IM until sixth grade.” Another minor criticism as that the book’s accompanying web site is still under construction. A book such as this requires an online companion to allow readers easy access to all of the wonderful online resources it references, as well as a means for the authors to update links and add new resources as they become available. Both Fodeman and Monroe have promised to do this.

This is the book I have been waiting for to teach students online safety. The authors have made a fine contribrution to the literature on Internet use in schools, and I encourage educators with interests in this area to read it.

We’ve been discussing a number of topics during today’s Summercore session about copyright infrigement, potentially hurtful blog and other internet posts by students, and related issues of ethical behavior among the so-called digital natives.

This is not a technical issue. This is not a Technology Department issue. This is an issue of ethical behavior that needs the same attention paid to it as we devote to other issues such as environmental sustainability, social justice, poverty and – as we discuss them at Castilleja School – our five C’s: Conscience, Courtesy, Character, Courage, and Charity (sorry, Heather, if I did not get them in the right order.)

This does not mean that the tech department doesn’t play an important role in the discussion of these issues. Indeed, we have an important role to play. It’s just that these issues are not under our exclusive purview. We co-own these issues with the entire faculty and administration – and the larger school community.

Thoughts, anyone?