This discussion needs to be set in the context of what is happening on and to the web. In other words, our policies need to address the realities of online, mobile and ubiquitous computing. Integrated, online services, social software and collaborative networks and communities have established themselves so rapidly that, even if teenagers were not dedicated users of them, our role as educators would require us to be teaching our students how to use these tools and what constitutes good practice. We have a body of pupils who use webmail and the integrated applications these now come with (as under development by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! …), who have never known a world without mobile and online communication and for whom online social networking is simply part and parcel of their lives.
— how I began a brief paper I wrote last week for internal discussion at work. In the paper, I drew upon some excellent, recent material that is freely available online. Of this, I'd single out material by, or including contributions from, danah boyd.
- Earlier this month, the Advisory Committee to the US Congressional Internet Caucus heard evidence from ‘The nation's foremost academic researchers on child online safety’ (see here). Amongst those who spoke was danah (who needs no introduction here). The video of this session repays watching.
- Elsewhere, in a piece entitled, Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?, danah wrote:
Today’s teenagers are being socialised into a society complicated by shifts in the public and private. New social technologies have altered the underlying architectures of social interaction and information distribution. They are embracing this change, albeit often with the clumsy candour of an elephant in a china shop. Meanwhile, most adults are panicking. They do not understand the shifts that are taking place and, regardless, they don’t like what they’re seeing.
This leaves educators in a peculiar bind. More conservative educators view social technologies as a product of the devil, bound to do nothing but corrupt and destroy today’s youth. Utterly confused, the vast majority of educators are playing ostrich, burying their heads in the sand and hoping that the moral panics and chaos that surround the social technologies will just disappear. Slowly, a third group of educators is emerging - those who believe that it is essential to understand and embrace the new social technologies so as to guide youth through the murky waters that they present. This path is tricky because it requires educators to let go of pre-existing assumptions about how the world works. Furthermore, as youth are far more adept at navigating the technologies through which these changes are taking place, educators must learn from their students in order to help them work through the challenges that they face.
In this article, I want to address how the architecture that frames social life is changing and what it means for a generation growing up knowing that this shift is here to stay. Educators have a very powerful role to play in helping smooth the cultural transition that is taking place; I just hope that they live up to this challenge.
… educators are well positioned to directly engage youth about their networked practices. ... Internet safety is on the tip of most educators’ tongues, but much of what needs to be discussed goes beyond safety. It is about setting norms & considering how different actions will be interpreted.
- In a posting about cyber-bullying on her own blog, danah noted:
Focusing on the technology will not make the bullying actually go away, although the more we push it underground the less visible it is to adults.
Adapting some material from my paper …
The traditional media’s view of online life still informs the views of many of those adults whose role it is to manage schools. Risk is writ large. Expert researchers contradict the views of traditional media, tell a very different story about risk and put the emphasis upon the need to educate our children about the tools they are accustomed to use.
The mere existence or use of online, digital tools does not in itself expose a user to wild danger. “Digital space” is not something set apart from the rest of life: the technology may amplify or highlight certain behavioural patterns of which we disapprove, but such behaviour (for example, bullying) will be spread across non-digital and digital life. Schools need to treat digital life as part and parcel of what life now is and, just as schools don’t ban pupils from talking to each other in physical spaces where they cannot be monitored, schools must not ban them from virtual spaces to which they have access outside of school. Anti-bullying programmes needs to include cyber-space just as much as they already include physical space, and all adults need to be sensitive to where children are spending their time, to whom they are talking and to their well-being.
… we need to work with our pupils, seeking to inform, certainly, but also learning from their understanding of these tools. Perpetuating a culture that seeks to ban and control, rather than to inform and influence, is both self-defeating and anti-educational. Very recently, the Province of Ontario in Canada announced that it was banning access to Facebook for thousands of bureaucrats and elected officials. Michael Geist, Professor of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa, commented:
The attempts to block Facebook or punish users for stating their opinions fails to appreciate that social network sites are simply the internet generation's equivalent of the town hall, the school cafeteria, or the workplace water cooler - the place where people come together to exchange both ideas and idle gossip. Attempts to block such activity are not only bound to fail, but they ultimately cut off decision makers, school officials, and community leaders from their communities. The answer does not lie in banning Facebook or the other emerging social media sites, but rather in facing up to Facebook fears and learning to use these new tools to engage and educate.
We are at a cross-roads. Either we carry on with what John Naughton has called the Old Person’s ICT Curriculum or we address the world as it is:
[We are] preparing kids to use the ageing tools of an old paradigm - rather than educating them for life in a networked society where they will need different kinds of knowledge and skills as yet undreamt-of by the QCA. By failing to recognise this, we are not only boring our children but also doing them a great disservice. Our schools are providing ICT training, whereas what is needed is ICT education.
