Saturday, October 11, 2008
The Dark Side of Technology in the Classroom
I read an interesting article in NEA Today about the dark side of technology. It was about how kids will record events that go on in the classroom on their cell phone, take it home and edit it to look like something completely different then post it on You Tube. The article reported about incidents that didn't turn out so bad for the teachers (a teacher performing a cheer to her students in a somewhat provocative way. She was called into administration but not fired) to incidents that made the teacher lose their job or go on probation. I know last year, as a joke to introduce the year, our tech guy showed us a video on You Tube where a kid was recording on his cell phone in the classroom. The video showed a student run up from the back of the class, pull the teachers pants down to his ankles and then run out of the room. All the students in the classroom were screaming with laughter. It had been posted on the web for all to see. A middle school or high school teachers worse nightmare. He showed us other videos that kids had recorded of teachers reprimanding (screaming at) individual kids, tackling kids, or yelling at the whole class. Though I know behavior like that is not acceptable, it is not up to the students to expose it. I think in all this technology training, the one piece we cant forget is the social responsibility we need to teach to kids. What is the acceptable way and what is the unacceptable way to use this technology in schools. Though we are mostly elementary teachers, it has to start from day one.
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Thanks for sharing this piece --- it points out the 'dark side' of technology and why many disticts won't let students carry cell phones etc. I think you are on the right track - it goes back to our social networking discussion and why we should teach kids online responsibility and the social aspects (right and wrong) that are a critical part of it all. Teachers do have to be careful... proceed with caution!
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