EduBlog Insights

I read the following via Doug’s Borderland blog.

Send your message in opposition to DOPA by going to the US Senate website Find Your Senators dropdown menu in the upper right corner of the page. and locate your senator with the Find Your Senators dropdown menu in the upper right corner of the page.
This is my letter to Lisa Murkowski. Feel free to model yours after this one. I used Vicki Davis’ blog post and Chistopher Harris’ wiki page as information resources.

Good idea! This prompted me to share my letter to my Senator:

I am a teacher. I currently work at Georgia State University in Atlanta. I am an Information Systems Technology Specialist in the Instructional Technology Center in the College of Education. I have worked in the public school system for over 20 years. Part of my job is to go out to the public schools and model effective use of technology to make sure it is safe and pedagogically sound for our students. My weblog, EduBlog Insights is a co-winner of the Best Teacher Blog in the second international Edublog Awards, a web based event that recognizes the many diverse and imaginative ways in which weblogs are being used within education. I am a founding contributor to the Ed Tech Insider weblog for eSchool News. I present at local, state, and national conferences on blogging and other technologies used in education. I am a former teacher of the year for my school and I have spent the last four years exploring possibilities for using blogs and other social networking tools in our classrooms. I provide this background to let you know that I have done my homework and found that these online tools are an incredible resource that we must have available to use in our classrooms. Why my students have even spotlighted their learning from blogging at the Annual Georgia State Legislative Appreciation night. Many of you acknowledged what good thinkers and writers these 4^th and 5^th grade bloggers were. You also expressed that you had much to learn about these new tools. Please take a look at my projects at this url, http://anne.teachesme.com/my-weblog-projects/ Take a look at the presentation created by one group of students who share what they learned over the year on the link Blooming Bloggers Show: End of Year Presentation to Celebrate Learning. It is listed under The Write Weblog project. Please browse through the links to see responsible use by students who have been blogging.

As I stated above, I have done my homework. Now I ask that you please do the same. If you do, you would certainly vote no on H.R. 5319, the “Deleting Online Predators Act.”

The bill states that it is designed to protect minors from commercial social networking websites and chat rooms. I cannot believe that this bill is even on the table. It would take away our responsibility to teach our students how they can stay safe and learn responsible internet use with all the amazing social networking tools that are now available. You don’t educate by banning, you educate by teaching and there are some outstanding uses made of this technology already currently on the web. Many of the sites that you would ban with this bill are just tools that provide many incredible educational possibilities for our students. Students can share what they are learning with others and receive feedback. Learning communities can be built that let us open the doors of our classrooms to a global audience where engaging conversations can take place. Our students can have the opportunity to communicate with peers from all over the world, experts, authors, etc. This develops social and cultural competence. Since students can have ownership over tools such as blogs it can become an authentic, relevant way to use and improve reading, writing and thinking skills. It can give our students a voice that is empowering and they gain a sense of personal identity and value. Social networking technologies create a sense of community unlike others we educators have had available in the past. Students need to be taught how to be safe and how to recognize danger on the Internet in the same way that they have been educated in the schools to “Just say no”, “run the other way if a stranger approaches”, etc. Without pedagogical models of how to create with these tools, we are essentially leaving students on their own without any help or guidelines for effective, responsible and safe use. The possibilities for their learning are without limit and we need to be guiding that learning, not just leaving them on their own. Some positive uses of social networking in classrooms, schools and libraries are listed on YALSA, the Young Adult Library Services Association which is a division of the American Library Association (ALA) (http://www.leonline.com/yalsa/dopa_teens_social_networking.pdf)

As an educator and a parent and a grandparent, safety for children is a top priority of mine. I do feel very strongly that our children should be protected from predators of every type. However, a vote on this bill prevents students from getting the education that they desperately need to protect themselves. Education is the answer, not a bill that prevents them from receiving that education! We have not banned access to malls, playgrounds, churches, movie theaters and other areas where predators have been. Why would we ban access to sites on the Internet? Predators look for places that are unsupervised. Schools are not unsupervised.

This bill would ban an entire class of online tools - the very tools that we need to prepare our students for the world of tomorrow. Inappropriate uses of specific tools can be handled at a local level, on a case-by-case basis. Are we going to restrict access to TVs, CD-ROMs, DVDs, or VCRs because they could be used inappropriately? The behavior is what may need to be addressed, not the tool. That world will consist of continued use of interactive web applications. Our students must be ready for a world that will increasingly become more web-based. The Internet is changing how we live, learn, work, and communicate with one another. The importance of online interaction and collaboration and the development of essential information literacy skills are crucial. As the Web becomes more and more the way we communicate and socialize, why would we not be centered on educating our students in the most effect and safe way to use these technologies? We must educate our students to understand the risks of their actions on the Internet and let them be able to come to us if something goes amiss so we can help them.

I find it incredible that you think the school is the place to ban sites when it is exactly the place where we need to teach our students responsible use. One Representative was quoted as saying parents could not protect their children once they went to school I do not think that the majority of irresponsible activity is happening in schools but in homes or other places where internet access is available.. What is needed is education and lots of it. Let us teach our children. Let us teach you. What better place than schools to provide this? I find it inconceivable that you would vote for a bill that takes this out of educators’ hands. I think you would be playing right into the hands of the predators that you seek to protect our children from Please take a look at this video (http://www.staysafe.org/teens/videos/predator.html) on internet safety made by a principal and a student. This site (staysafe.org) is created for teens and teaches many of the safety tips that we want to teach. Let us teach ethical, responsible use of the social networking software that will promote responsible citizens who will become life-long learners who can indeed make a difference in our world. We need to collaborate online and involve our students in learning how to be smart when it comes to the Internet. Educating our students is our hope and our responsibility.

The broad technological controls that would be required under DOPA will prevent access to beneficial sites, put us back in the dark ages, and will only further widen the digital divide.

I would appreciate a response from you on this matter. Thank you.

Anne Davis

Feel free to use any parts of this letter that might work for you. I have read so much on this over the past few days and I know I will miss some but I need to give credit to the following who provided links or just helped me with my thinking about this issue.

YALSA