You might be of the view that social media sites have revolutionized the way that people communicate and changed how we learn from each other. But if you are, you probably aren't serving in the legislature of Rhode Island.
Wait, what? Really? Rhode Island?
Oh yes, really. If Rhode Island's legislature was any less connected to the modern world, you'd need a DeLorean and a ruffled collar just to visit them. If Rhode Island's legislature was any more backwards, the statehouse would be on Island Road. And they wouldn't be able to find it.
On Thursday, the Rhode Island legislature passed HB 5941, an "anti-bullying" measure that, among its other provisions, imposes a blanket ban on the use of "social networking sites" (whatever those are, post-web 2.0) on school grounds. Because as everyone knows, anyone who encounters another user on a website is immediately bullied into submission. Right?
There's so much wrong with this bill that it's hard to know where to start. What is a "social networking site," really? The bill doesn't define it. Is The Huffington Post a social networking site? Users have profiles and we communicate with each other. Has the legislature of Rhode Island really intended to block HuffPost on school grounds? Would you be horrified to learn your children are reading news and current events in school?
And even if they intended nothing more than to ban Facebook and Twitter, does it surprise anyone that the legislature has a Facebook page? (If you're one of the eight people that currently likes the legislature, I'd deeply suggest you reconsider. Especially if you like them from school, because soon you'll be an outlaw.)
Not sure that this bill is overboard yet? The bill would need Governor Lincoln D. Chafee's signature. Of course, he has a Twitter account. And of course, if he signed it, he'd be "stopping bullying" by preventing kids from reading his own words. I know you're an Independent, Governor Chafee, but would you really want to assert your independence from common sense, too?
Even if we thought traditional social networking sites were somehow more risky than other sites, which they are not; and even if we thought schools were capable of banning them from student phones, which they are not; trusting schools with a mandate and a vague grant of authority is a recipe for abuse. As the SPLC's Frank LoMonte wrote:
Leave it to the sound judgment of school disciplinarians to define "social networking site" on a case-by-case basis, you say? What judgment? Have you slept through the last 25 years of "zero-tolerance" disciplinary overkill? Given ill-defined punitive authority, we can be sure that a substantial number of schools will apply it in nonsensically literal ways to criminalize innocent behavior.
That's right, Rhode Island: the legislature wants the same kind of people spending public money defending their right to police slumber parties for penis-shaped lollipops to decide when your students should be punished for daring to use the same well-established technologies the legislature and governor are using today. What about the judgment of school administrators suggests to you they should be involved in policing Internet use?
And for that matter, what about the last century of public education suggests to you they're even capable of stopping bullying when they find it, let alone in an over-broad mandate that has virtually nothing to do with bullying like this one?
Yes, the law includes an option for schools to permit students to access social networking sites when it serves the administrator's purposes. And as Frank again points out, expect to never see it used:
While the bill lets administrators opt out of the ban, liability-averse schools -- and every school is a liability-averse school -- invariably will follow the crowd, believing that any deviation from state standards will expose them to litigation if a parent traces a child's injury to an online message posted during school.
And this is not merely a theory. We have experience with this kind of supposed exception due to the obnoxious filters federal law requires schools to install. We've seen how they use them to block content students have a right to access, like information on sexual orientation. And we've seen that students, running into the filter, just shrug and access the content at home or on their phones or laptops, making the filters serve no greater purpose than to push students to the same content that is supposedly risky, except in places where there aren't teachers to help them.
All this time I thought Seth MacFarlane was exaggerating about what Rhode Island is like. I doubt even he could come up with a plot this stupid.
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Anyway, if the Internet is as transformative for our society as the Gutenberg printing press was, then banning kids from using the most important part of the Internet, the ability to communicate with other people, leaves them in the dust in terms of learning valuable communication tools for later in life.
Steve from www.essaytask.com
In fact, all flash based video is blocked unless specifically requested by the teacher for educational purposes.
It is far too easy to access inappropriate material otherwise, thus putting us in legal hot water.
Chicago has an outright ban on social networking sites as well as a blanket block of all flash based video. Seriously. Instead of ushering students into the digital age by augmenting coursework and communication with technology and helping students explore the possibilities, and dangers, of the wireless world, the Chicago Public Schools forbids it entirely.
The CPS Acceptable Use Policy even forbids the use of cell phone communication between students and parents. (But our new CEO does think teachers should visit the homes of our students.)
Stick together, folks, together Chicago and RI can stave off the onset of the 21st century!The CPS Acceptable Use Policy even forbids the use of cell phone communication with students and parents.
(15) Students shall be prohibited from accessing social networking sites at school, except
for educational or instructional purposes and with the prior approval from school administration.
Nothing in this act shall prohibit students from using school department or school websites for
educational purposes. School districts and schools are encouraged to provide in-service training
on Internet safety for students, faculty and staff.
This is a common sense "instructional purpose" restriction. The unfortunate "squishy" part is whether this also covers student use of personal mobile devices while in school, but not in the classroom. Also, the administrative approval if a requirement for every use would be overly burdensome. But schools can address this with a policy that outlines when access to resources on a social networking site are permissible.
How many employers have restrictions for use of social media for non-work purposes? This is no different.
Instructional activities - such as classroom instruction - should not occur on sites such as Facebook - which has been established for "socializing." Facebook's philosophy is that privacy is no longer a social norm. For educators, protecting student privacy is a legal obligation. There are excellent social media environments that support high quality instructional activities. Under the language of the statute, these sites would be considered school sites.
Recently there was an article on the GigaOM network about using social networking in the classroom. http://gigaom.com/2011/05/13/why-social-media-tools-have-a-place-in-the-classroom/ I tend to agree that any institution that refuses to embrace, own their social media plan and execute it has their face in the sand and risks becoming irrelevant.
And back to my original point...some teachers are using "tools" like social networking and collaboration tools. But they need to know the difference and have a plan to use them.
As for the kids...keeping them off Facebook will be about as effective as trying to keep them from drinking before they're 21. This whole issue starts with families!
As a way to communicate with kids at home it might be ok but at school , no.
That being said this should be a school board matter not a matter for the state legislature.
We are supposed to be teaching this kids how to survive in this modern world. I'd rather they master Facebook and social media and pop culture sites than memorize a Shakespeare play.
KIDS HAVE TO SURVIVE and THRIVE!!! If some of the inner city kids are going to make any money at all using the internet, it is going to be through the new paradigms.
They don't have internet at home, by the way. Rich kids do~~
A student trying to climb out of the slums is far better off focusing their energy and effort on fields where intelligence, hard work, and discipline are more consistently rewarded and where reasonable allowance is made for a relative lack of social skills and cultural knowledge.
Yes, learn to use the internet productively. I don't see most social media usage as being productive.
The students should be loading up on math and science. If they are interested in the web, do programming and web design. Study IT and work with PC's - configuration, maintenance, networking, updating, etc. You can get good at this stuff early. And you can make money doing it. And then head off to college in the sciences and engineering. These fields are used to taking smart, hard-working, and rather unbalanced individuals and making them professionals.
I will try to remember a comment some decades ago by a university dean:
"It is easier for a student from the slums to get into medical school than succeed in the professional leagues. The lifetime rewards of medical school are far higher. Yet most are pursuing the sports path. Why?"
"Slum kids" (his expression, not mine) love sports because they excel at it. It is tangible. At the end of the game there is a score. And these kids could destroy any team from the other side of the tracks. All the high-class kids thinking they are going to be a doctor..... How many of them will pecome MD's???
There I ended with a question. Just like your dean.
And take loans, and establish credit.
Those are things I would not like to see a 13 year old doing...and Facebook is online interaction...something I prefer kids learn about AFTER they learn to play nicely with others.
http://wwwÂ.local10.cÂom/news/26Â069593/detÂail.html
MIAMI -- Two students at a South Florida middle school were suspended after school officials said they were bullying other children on a social networking site.
http://wwwÂ.wbng.com/Ânews/localÂ/Bullying-Âand-SocialÂ-Media-114Â389044.htmÂl
Seventeen students at Vestal High School face potential disciplinaÂry action for participatÂion in "Kick a Jew Day." The name says it all, but the origin could have been online. Action News found many references to the event on Facebook.
PORTLAND -- CyberbullyÂing is a growing problem facing kids hooked on social network sites like Facebook, http://wwwÂ.kgw.com/nÂews/local/ÂStopping-cÂyberbullyiÂng-1217491Â29.html Just FYI these three article took me less then a minute to get. I should update my facebook page on how quick i did that!
It's amusing to see someone so against the banning of something that shouldn't be done during school hours anyway. The kids should be paying attention in class not updating facebook talking about how math class is hard today, or how someone is wearing white after Labor Day!
What it boils down to is this. You feel that Facebook is a good thing for some reason. I don't know, maybe you are level 300 in mafia wars or something. Just like the school district where I lived banned cell phones from classrooms. So the students have to leave them in their lockers during school hours. Kids don't need access to angry birds during biology class. Access to current technologies would be great for every student. What you don't realize is that facebook is a portal to video games, advertisments and distractions that need to be avoided during the school day.
facebook is lame. if we really want the youth to get off it, let's make it mandatory...no more homeowrk, mandatory facebook time....this will take the bloom right off that rose.
I don't give a sh8t what is going on on fing facebook, and I'd rather eat glass than moniter what my students are doing on it.
I don't have any problem with schools banning Facebook, just like I have no problem with schools banning note-passing or outbursts in class. I do think it should be left up to the schools to decide, since, despite Goldstein's apparent contempt for educators, they're the experts, both on education and on the kids they're dealing with. But I do think they shouldn't solve the problem with a sledgehammer by running "filtering" software that blocks half the Internet. It doesn't solve the problem, but it does cripple the most powerful teaching tool ever to be allowed into schools, after teachers.
Ban Facebook. But don't block it; just let the teachers discipline kids if they're caught using it without permission.
Not that a state law banning Facebook is likely to do that. I sort of doubt that it's likely to do much of anything, actually, since as I already said, I'd bet that the public schools in RI already have their filtering software set to block it. Which is why it strikes me as silly to get that bent out of shape about it. It seems like the sort of law that out-of-touch legislatures pass to little practical effect.
And the way you present examples of overreach by some educators as support for your argument that completely different educators can't be trusted to implement a law like this certainly reads as contempt. You're certainly painting a profession with a single broad brush, and the picture you paint is unflattering. If you really don't have contempt for educators, you need to work on your communication skills, because you're expressing contempt whether you feel it or not.