Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Web 2.0 Text Chapter 7

Online safety and security is a huge issue of course. A few things that stood out:

-"Cyberbullying may be the online equivalent of bad school yard behavior, but it is no less hurtful or dangerous." ("Web 2.0 New Tools, New Schools" p.138.) What?! I couldn't believe I read that. Cyberbullying is so much worse and in too many obvious ways to list. In my opinion it's like equating chopping down a tree in your backyard to slashing and burning a rain forest. Yikes.

- I liked the idea of special educational search engines, but they had better look sharp, or the kids are going to blow them off. Also, I agree that the AUP and Permission to Publish paperwork should be updated in simple language.

- Here's an interesting thing about YouTube: You have an option to "select only kid friendly videos" - but that doesn't filter the comments at all. If you watch an Elmo video and someone wants to post the nastiest comments (which they do) then there they are. Sure you can "flag" the comment and YouTube will review it and may remove it. Have you seen the filth people post to YouTube? I could sit with hundreds of people in a room flagging 40 hours a week and not keep up with it. Here's the cool part - it looks like there are some "non-YouTube" people out there working on applications to filter the comments. Go Web 2.0! What a perfect example of the two way street.

- Tee-Hee, the comments on MySpace on page 154 were funny... between Aug 2005 and Aug 2006 hits to MySpace by 12-17 year olds had declined, "they don't know why..." Anybody with their finger on the pulse of teenagers knows that the MySpace was losing favor and they were making the transition to FaceBook. "Positive Change?" as they state, or just change to a different Social Network that mom and dad didn't have a page on? I'd need to see more statistics to verify...

- The Cyber Awareness Survey was interesting. Sure the kids can "pass the test" when handed the survey. The real question is if they didn't know they were being observed how many would really put it into practice?

- Here's what I found most appalling: 71% of parents thought that a major portion of the responsibility for ensuring kids safety on the internet fell to the schools (page 150.) Another charming example of deferred responsibility. How much unsupervised time does a kid get with a computer in the school? Really, chart the time. Sure it happens, and sure the kids find things they shouldn't. In high school they may have a whole period where they are in the computer lab. And they are "unsupervised" until the librarian or teacher walks by, or the filtering software kicks in. And we need to be alert. Then the kid heads home at 2:30 and gets on the computer surfing gosh knows where for hours every afternoon while the parents are at work (and probably on into the night.) If you look at the Cyber Awareness Survey results the kids have been pretty well schooled in the text book answers. The parents in this survey need to step up and take some responsibility.

- Our only hope is to strengthen the triangle, the points are: schools/education - student/user - parent/home. Until we have commitment in all these areas the internet will remain a place with danger lurking behind the next mouse click.

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