While technology coordinators have cloud computing on the tip of their tongues and educators rush to include Web tools, like Google Docs and blogs, in their curriculum, there’s one thing that we must not lose sight of, and that’s safety. The World Wide Web can be a scary and dangerous place for naive students venturing out on search engines and Web sites for the first time. Without heading down the path of horror stories about cyber-bulling or cyber-predators, I think there are several safety measures we can discuss when it comes to Internet use in the K-12 classroom.
Most of us will agree that schools have long had a civic responsibility to create a safe learning environment for students on campus. Yet through the Internet and computers, our learning environments have expanded far beyond the walls of the classroom and the boundaries of campus. So, while we positively embrace and expand learning to a global grasp of new concepts, we must also expand our safety measures to the places students travel to on the Web.
Heed Caution When Publishing
Everything published to the Web is public and permanent, so it’s important to heed caution to students’ privacy and safety when it comes to activities like blogging. When students set up accounts, they risk putting their name, personal information, ideas and photos in public – forever. There’s a great deal of risk that comes with this. I feel it’s important that students are fully informed of the risks they take while creating accounts on the Web and interacting with individuals across the city, country and even the world.
This is especially true for blogs, which have become a popular medium of publishing written work among middle and high school classrooms. Students must fully understand the risks and consequences of putting personal information on the Web in order to make an informed decision to participate in blogs. I don’t believe that any student in a K-12 institution should be required to put his or her personal information, stories or ideas out into a public sphere, without evaluating safety first.
One solution proposed to ensure students’ privacy is to encourage students to give code names or false information when creating blogs and posting comments. While this is a solution to protecting student’s privacy online, it poses additional questions. What are we teaching our youth if we ask them to create false identities? Does this lay the foundation for cyber-bulling and cyber-predators, which is exactly what we are trying to protect our students from? I believe there are other, more suited alternatives to teaching with Web tools in the classroom.
Put Your Mind at Ease With Environments Built for Education
Webspiration Classroom™ was developed with the civic responsibility of education institutions in mind. Unlike many free cloud computing programs on the market, Webspiration Classroom offers an enclosed environment for students, teachers and faculty to interact with learning materials so that you can confidently set aside your concerns for online safety.
Students and teachers access their Webspiration Classroom documents with a protected SSL-encrypted login that does not need email to communicate. This means that students’ are protected from the general Web, contrary to many blogs. Teachers and students can share documents in a protected environment where only those that are invited to participate can review or contribute to the work. This allows students to publish their work, but control who sees what they publish.
In the Admin Utility under Student Collaboration Settings, the school’s administrator can choose to share only with account holders within the school or with account holders outside of the school. In addition, students are not exposed to mass directory of individuals using Webspiration Classroom like they are on other platforms like blogs or Facebook. So, there’s little concern about students sharing with unintended account holders.
What’s more, Webspiration Classroom is an advertising-free portal. This means that while working in this enclosed environment, students who most often are minors until their senior year are not receiving marketing emails, exposure to paid advertisements or distracted from the task at hand.
Educational institutions have a responsibility to create a safe environment for students to learn, grow and develop into young adults who can make informed decisions. That’s why Internet safety in the classroom is so important. In order to reap the positive benefits of the Web,students and teachers must take advantage of tools that provide this sort of safe ground for personal work and projects created on the Web.
How are you keeping your students safe on the Web?
Mona Westhaver
President and Co-founder, Inspiration Software
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Inspiration Software, Sarah Helfgott. Sarah Helfgott said: Educators, Web safety comes first when teaching media literacy http://bit.ly/fyVAiz #education [...]
You raise an interesting point, however, I believe that the FIRST thing an educator needs to look at when considering using a web-based application is the website’s TOS (Terms of Service). Of critical concern for educators of elementary students is whether the website may be used by someone under the age of 13. This is normally clearly stated in the TOS. If it states so, then PLEASE do not attempt to circumvent the issue by registering as yourself or creating dummy emails for students to use to register.
As educators we are expected to model good behavior. And if that’s not enough to deter you from using a website that does not allow under-13s, then remember this — the buck WILL stop with you! And yes, YOU will be held accountable for anything that happens.