A Very Risky Proposition

Some of my thoughts on the issue of online safety: My intention is not to force you into agreement with me, but to toss out some morsels for you to “chew on” as you think about online safety in your own classroom.

Raising children is an exercise in managed risk. This starts very, very early. My eight month-old will soon be pulling up on the furniture as she practices the skills she will need to take her first independent steps. At this point, I will have a decision to make: do I allow her to learn to walk? Or do I require her to continue to sit and crawl on all fours for the rest of her life? After all, if she learns to walk, she’ll likely fall and harm herself, and worse, she’ll eventually learn to run, which adds the element of speed to her chances of injury. As she grows older, I’ll have to face these decisions almost daily. Should I teach her to play baseball? What if she gets hit in the teeth with a line drive? Should I teach her to swim? What about drowning? And, oh dear, one day, I’ll have to face the decision of whether to allow her to learn to drive a car!!!

As a parent, I have to weigh the risks versus the benefits of each of those decisions. My child will probably be able to survive life without knowing how to play baseball. And unless she accidentally falls into a body of water without a flotation device, she will likely do fine without knowing how to swim. But I must realize that, without the skill of driving, my child will be at a serious disadvantage in day-to-day life in our society. Turning a teenager loose in a motorized vehicle is a very risky proposition, indeed. But when compared with the benefits of having the skill of driving, it becomes a nearly necessary risk to take.

This is the way I feel about allowing kids to use technology. They will be greatly disadvantaged if they are forced to enter the world as adults without the skills necessary to utilize technology tools to accomplish their goals and aspirations. In the world our students will enter after their time in school, technology will be as necessary to their success as driving a car is in ours.

Back to the analogy of driving… Since driving a motor vehicle is such a risky proposition, do we just turn our kids loose with the keys without any training? Of course not! We spend weeks, months, teaching our kids to drive safely. They have to learn to watch out for their own safety and be concerned for the safety of others. In the same way, we must proactively seek to train our students to use technology tools safely. They must learn the “defensive driving” skills necessary for using online resources.

Even with excellent training, are there times when teenagers disregard all their training and guidelines for the safe operation of a vehicle? Certainly. And the same may be said of the use of technology. Some students will intentionally disregard safe internet practices. That’s the risk. We must do everything in our power to mitigate that risk. But I still contend that we are doing our students a disservice if we completely remove the risk (and opportunity) by not using technology in our instruction. In essence, we are making the decision that our students must “crawl around on all fours” for the rest of their lives!

Now, since this is such a new area of risk, we must be especially careful to keep parents involved in the process. As a teacher, you should make every effort to protect your students while they are online in your classroom. And you should make parents aware of what their students are doing online in your classroom as well as the security features you have put in place for their protection. I am also a proponent of the school district providing parent training in the area of online safety. However, if your school district doesn’t offer such training, it is a good idea to send home information to parents about online safety. And finally, the ultimate authority on safe and ethical use of technology in your classroom is your school’s Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). This generally goes home to all parents in the beginning-of-school rush of paperwork to sign. Be sure that you are familiar with your school’s AUP for students and teachers. I will say that not all AUPs are created equal! You may enact greater security measures in your classroom than those stipulated in your AUP.

But all that said - teach them to drive!!!!