In my "Internet for Classroom Use" assignment this week, I am to write about several of the most significant challenges I face when using the Internet in my classroom. This should be easy since I’m the computer teacher and ALL my students have access to the Internet.
As you’ve read in my blog before, safety is a huge factor with the students using the Internet in my classroom. Our school policy does not allow students to give out their email addresses or to check personal email, but they’ll do that as soon as my back is turned. Or worse, they’ll give out a parent or friend’s email to sign up for a game website. I try to control this by always walking around and being present. I start the school year with discussions about Internet safety. The main website I use is NetSmartz which is very informative and helpful. My instructor suggested some other sites such as WebAware and SafeKids which I welcome. We can never have enough resources for student safety.
Even still, I have students as young as third grade with a MySpace account. It boggles my mind. Some eighth grade students applying for entrance to a prestigious high school have MySpace accounts that show someone that I would not want at my high school. I talk to the class as a whole about the image they portray on their profiles as well as what people think when they see these images. I also pull the students aside who have offending MySpace accounts and ask them to look at their profile from the point of view of the person determining whether they are granted entrance to the high school. I hope it works.
When I have assignments that don’t involve the Internet, a few students will sneak online or just go online and act like they misunderstood me when I ask them why they’re online. I’ve been known to unhook the Internet in my Computer Lab during that class session to help the students stay on task.
In research projects, many of my students just want to print out material they find on the Internet, killing a few trees in the process or they want to copy and paste and say that they’re finished. I try to convey the importance of using your own words instead of copying. I bring up discussions of how plagiarism has affected the career of Pulitzer Prize winner Steven Ambrose, for one, and how plagiarism is basically cheating. I hope the discussions make a difference.
Most of these challenges involve much patience and discussion as well as rejection of student work that isn’t really student work.
For the most part, however, I feel privileged that my students have access to computers with access to the Internet and the opportunities it offers to them. I hear ‘horror’ stories of schools with old dinosaur computers that have no access to the Internet and think of how handicapped those schools are in this day and age. Yes, we have to protect our students but schools should also make sure that their students have access to beneficial information and interactive applications that only the Internet can provide.
Great post, I like your line about patience, great advise for teachers. Do you feel that you are doing more "policing" of the computers then before? I get two-three a day with some student putting inapp. pics on the desktop.
ReplyDeleteWith you being in the classroom and computers all day long, you have first hand experience and a great insight on what takes place in the classroom and the safety procedures that should take place when students are using the computers. I like the websites you mentioned that describe student's safety and how you monitor your classroom websites daily. Giving an introduction to what sites should be allowed or not allowed in the beginning of the year is a good idea because it lets students know what dos and don'ts behind how the wrong information in the wrong hands can be detrimental to their safety and privacy. In my blog I mentioned the importance of doing your own work and not simply copying someone else's work. With the age of the internet upon us it is easy to copy and paste another person's work as your own and take credit. Students fail to realize teachers have access to all of those websites and are looking for students who do not do their own work. I liked your response to this assignment and I like how you incorporated your everday experience to this assignment, nice job.
ReplyDeleteDorene,
ReplyDeleteI would like to say that you have a very interesting job. This class should be ideal for your everyday use in your classroom. You are a prime example of why we need to continue using the internet in the classroom. I strongly believe that if have extra safety measures set in place for students, such as setting up blocks for certain websites. such as myspace and etc. The students would not be able to gain access. I agree with you on the students having access to beneficial information.