Social Networking Deferred

I am enjoying a piece by Will Richardson in the November Educational Leadership called "Footprints in the Digital Age." I am enjoying it because he is writing about a situation that should most certainly be occurring. I am enjoying it because I agree, then I wake up and smell the coffee. He is speaking correctly about how the children are using the web 2.0 tools to connect with their friends and the world. They are using blogs, wikis, youtube, my space, facebook, flickr, and so many more web 2.0 tools. Then I suddenly came out of my haze and asked, "Where is this happening, Will"? At home where children either have geeky parents or have access and are figuring it out themselves. Once again children are learning about something on their own, from friends, or from a small handful of knowledgeable parents who are even allowed in to help children on computers. Let me ask how many of us learned about sex from our parents? I think the same can be said for computing. The children,, as Richardson and others point out are learning about computing out of school and not under the supervision of adults. Thus the concern Richardson raises early in the article about controlling how we are "Googled." I like his metaphor of the bus. The children are in the front on this technology bus, while the adults are in the back holding on for dear life. I agree that we need to have some kind of supervision in an educational environment for their safety and learning how to use these tools correctly. Problem is that

So much about what Richardson says is inspiring and yet as a teacher in a public school in NYC, I find what he suggests we do with web 2.0 tools impossible because of the filters. When I try to access a fantastic YouTube video, I can't because of the filter. So I have to take the URL submit it to Zamzar and have it convert to a file I can read in class. Time delay. One of the benefits of the Internet in my early days of usage was that filters didn't exist, so anytime, anywhere education worked then, but not today, because of the filter. Laura is very lucky to be learning with her mother's guidance. I think that is rare, very very rare. Children are not being guided by their parents, let alone from their teachers in their schools.

As I reread Richardson's article, I realized he was unaware of the filter or not familiar with public schools or lives in a very privileged community. Whenever a teacher in a NYC school tries to access, let alone use a web 2.0 tool, the teacher is greeted with a page declaring this page is not allowed in a NYC school. Other pages, like Facebook, are considered "social networking" and are constantly blocked. Now one might suggest the teacher get these pages unblocked. The procedure in NYC is cumbersome and difficult which means teachers rarely do it. Also once a page has been unblocked, it could get blocked soon as the blocked pages is reloaded.

In school, I find the children use proxies obtained from nefarious sites to get to their my space and facebook pages. Teachers can't use these proxies otherwise the teacher would be looking for a new job. I have always agreed with what Richardson writes about. My problem is the folks who oversee our filters and control our Internet access do not understand what Richardson writes let alone agree with it.

There are many teachers I know who have been well aware of the power of technology, have tried to employ the technology, only to find their efforts thwarted by filters and poor administration. Technology needs to be unharnessed to be effective in schools. It must be allowed to run with the guidance of experienced teachers, trusted pedagogues. Again when the authorities assess schools they continue to use tools that we used when they were students. We can't continue to teach and assess the way we were taught. I have been teaching in a computer room since 1983. I was never taught with this kind of technology in my classes when I was a student in the 50's and 60's. Empowering the scholars is what CyberEnglish is all about. Those of us who utilize the tenets of CyberEnglish agree wholeheartedly with Richardson. Our only caveat would be the reality of the state of technology in our schools today is not near what Richardson speaks about. Of course, I concur with what he has said. I don't know anyone who would disagree. Where is this happening? Since the article was published in a magazine for school administrators, I would love to know how we get this kind of access in our schools? Richardson's examples seemed to be out of school, not in a school, so how is this going to help us? Are we still trying to inspire administrators to the use of technology in classrooms, when they themselves are bereft of real pedagogical knowledge of the use of technology in the classrooms, let alone web 2.0 tools. I'd like them to name a couple of web 2.0 tools. As I said, I have been enjoying this article, thanks.

PS: I have been spending the last month negotiating with Rosetta Stone and our own technology department to get the online program, Rosetta Stone to work in my classroom. We can't get the update to download because of the filters and the tech folks at the NYCDOE and at Rosetta Stone haven't been able to solve the problem. I'm talking about a very powerful educational tool unable to get into the classrooms because of a filter and yet my students can get to their myspace and facebook pages.