Weekly blog posts I can (try to) do.

This week’s theme is education. I’ve actually spent pretty much my entire life in the education system – with the exception of my infancy. My first job out of college was at a university, and I am lucky enough to still be working there now (all of three years later). If you’ve read any of my prior entries, you know that I am currently enrolled in a graduate program, a Masters in Instructional Technology. The program is wonderful so far; the students range from teachers to business-people to workplace trainers, and the exposure to technology is equally varied.

The module on which we are currently working in my current class has to do with the use of Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom – blogs, wikis, and social bookmarking. There are a number of fantastic technologies out there, but teachers are still trying to figure out ways to integrate them into the classroom. It might seem obvious – give a student a blog instead of a daily writing journal for a writing project – they can update their blog, and their peers can comment.

Steve Hargadon, whose blog I have subscribed to this evening and will probably spend a good bit of time tomorrow reading, discusses the integration of Web 2.0 technologies into the classroom in his entry “Moving towards Web 2.0 in K-12 Education“. The web, as Steve puts it (and I would agree), can be seen as a conversation – and many people are joining in, especially the students. As the more and more valuable content becomes part of this digital conversation,

it becomes an educational imperative to teach ourselves and students to be productive participants in those conversations” (Hargadon, 2008)

But there’s a lot that needs to be taught in conjunction with the conversational web. I wrote in my discussion response for this week about the need that I can see for educating students to become responsible users of the web – teaching about trolling, about file sharing, about responsibly commenting. Are teachers today prepared to teach their students about this? According to a recent study by the Educational Technology Policy, Research, & Outreach (Center? I feel like there should be a Center there) and the National Cyber Security Alliance, probably not. The study (fact sheet pdf ), released in 2008, has some worrying results, including that 75% if teachers are NOT comfortable discussing cyber-bullying and 52% of teachers don’t understand how to ensure a website is secure. If the teachers don’t know this, how will the students learn? Should teachers be responsible for teaching students about cyber safety? Is teaching kids how to become responsible citizens of the web on par with teaching them to become responsible citizens of the world (should “don’t cyber-bully” be taught alongside with “don’t bully”)? When is it appropriate, or is it appropriate to do this?