Digication Blog

Will Richardson posted a transcript of Andy Losik’s “E-Mailed Stories that We Liked Dept.” on his blog Weblogg-ed today that speaks to the horror that so many teachers utilizing the web in their classrooms today are facing.

Schools are shutting down access to “Web Logs/Personal web pages” which includes access to Web 2.0 websites such as del.icio.us and web journals such as blogs and wikis.

Although Losik after some frantic emails to his School District was able to obtain access again many teachers are not so lucky. In Rhode Island, where we are located, teachers and students are blocked from any site where users can contribute information. Because of the negative press associated with sites like MySpace and Friendster teachers and students are no longer able to view the most current information relevant to their classes online and teachers are left without useful tools for sharing information with their students and their parents online. In many cases teachers can’t even access their email – so any communication with their students beyond the classroom is effectively cut-off.

How are teachers going to be able to equip their students with necessary technology skills if they can not utilize the same tools within the classroom that people normally use on a day-to-day basis whether as part of their job or their social life? How are students going to learn what is appropriate use of the web for researching topics for an assignment, publishing information for an audience beyond their classroom, and distributing media files if they are not able to do so as pat of their educational experience?

I think so many students are running into trouble in with the type of content they post in some of today’s popular social networking sites because they have not had the opportunity to use that type of technology as part of their academic life – they have had no guidance in how to utilize such technology safely or for a purpose other than talking about who is dating who and posting pictures from last weekend’s party.

Students thrive on the opportunity to be creative and share what’s on their mind when they know that someone is listening – and in large part that is what is so exciting for students about Web 2.0 technology. This motivates us to keep building better learning tools.