It seems these types of calls are still appearing quite regularly. This BBC article reports on a Professional Association of Teachers conference in the UK. There is a desire here not just to ban sites such as YouTube in schools, but to shut them down. Locally we have seen a number of States banning sites such as YouTube etc from use within schools for a number of reasons.
The problem in this case is cyber-bullying, both of students and teachers. In response to the problem, the demand seems to be to shut all such sites down, at least in the short term. It is not clear whether a (long term) solution was discussed.
Clearly the problem is not the sites themselves so shutting them down isn’t going to stop bullying from happening in the broader context. A spokesperson from the Beatbullying charity goes on to say:
“”Calls for social networking sites like YouTube to be closed because of cyberbullying are as intelligent as calls for schools to be closed because of bullying.
…Cyberbullying is flourishing for two reasons. First, society is not adequately preventing bullying behaviour…
…And secondly, it seems to be easier to type something hateful to a school friend rather than say it to their face…” “
Sadly, history and society is riddled with examples of individuals/groups using technologies to hurt others. Banning those technologies is a response but doesn’t address the cause of the problems though.
This is a really difficult issue - we can see so many positive examples from appropriate (there’s a value laden term) use of social networking sites but put yourself in the victims (students, teachers, families etc) perspective and try to see how they feel too.
Cheers,
Jerry.
technorati tags: cyber-bullying, YouTube,Social Networking
3 Comments
The association is not in Scotland, but a UK-wide association, and the views of its leader are not necessarily what teachers at large think. I’ve written a fair bit about it and there’s a heck of a debate about what we could/should be doing:
http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/2007/08/how-much-do-sch.html
Great - thanks for that clarification Ewen - I had wondered about it. Fully appreciate the views expressed in the article are not universal. I came across that report just after we had been debating ourselves about how to best demonstrate the value and potential that such sites offer for teaching and learning. Thanks for the link to your blog - there is some really interesting stuff there.
This debate affects me as well. As an expereinced educator who has a bit of kudos within my school, I get away with bending the rules. I allow personal technology in my classroom, provided it is used constructively for the purposes that we are officially in the room. And… I trust the kids to play the game.
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