Imagination used for good and evil

20th February 2007

posted in creativity, disruptive-technology, isafety, socialnetworking |

The Flash animation intro of the Stopcyberbullying.org website is sobering. The final statement is thought provoking and challenging:

Cyberbullying is only limited by the imaginations and bandwidth of kids.

I’d change the world “kids” in this statement to “people.” Sadly, some people continue to demonstrate bullying behaviors into adulthood.

Technology is a tool, which can be used for good, neutral, or evil purposes. This reminds me of Doug Johnson’s post “Rules for Pod People and a Proposal for Banning Pencils” from 2005. A sharp number 2 pencil can be a very dangerous and disruptive tool in the hands of a learner who wants to make bad choices. So can an Internet-connected computer.

Are we striving to help our students in schools learn ethical decision-making skills, so they can and will BECOME THE FILTERS for themselves online in their lives? Are we talking to learners of all ages about digital citizenship and responsible online behavior? We need to be proactive on these issues, not merely reactive. We typically send our young people through a driver’s education class in which they actually practice driving on the roads and highways of the REAL WORLD before we give them a driver’s license. Similarly, we need to be helping our students learn to safely, appropriately, and powerfully navigate the virtual pathways of the information superhighway. Conversations about the issues and challenges we face there are likely our most powerful educational strategies for changing perceptions and behavior.

We need more digital dialog.

Technorati Tags: cyberbullying, internetsafety

On this day..

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 7:47 am and is filed under creativity, disruptive-technology, isafety, socialnetworking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

1 On February 20th, 2007, Andrew Boatman said:

The link to digital dialog at wikispaces is blocked via our filtering program at school.

2 On February 20th, 2007, Wesley Fryer said:

Unfortunately I’ve noticed that some schools here in Oklahoma are not only blocking all blogs, but also all wikis on wikispaces.com.

Miguel Guhlin’s post from last summer, “Imprisoning Lightning: The Challenge of Social Networking in K-16 Education” is thought provoking in this regard. Sorry you can’t pull that up from school!

3 On February 20th, 2007, Don Wood said:

Resources on child safety on the Internet, including cyberbullying, can be found here: Child Safety on Web 2.0: Who Should Protect Our Kids?, Cyberbullying and Free Speech, Bullies and Bullying, Additional Resources on Bullies and Bullying, Especially for Young People and Their Parents.

4 On February 20th, 2007, Wesley Fryer said:

Good list of resources Don, thanks!

5 On February 20th, 2007, ahf said:

Cyberbullying may have a cousin, “flaming” or â€œonline disinhibition effect.â€

See the NY Times article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/20/health/psychology/20essa.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=technology&adxnnlx=1172011851-9aamHEE5T09KZeNGIeopeA

HT to Kim Komando.

6 On February 21st, 2007, Andrew Pass said:

So, here’s a question: How do we teach ethical decision making skills? If we let our students use any and all technology how do we teach them to use it well?

Perhaps one of the things that we need to help our students understand is that they matter. Our students are important. They have the power to use technology to produce incredible results. When they use technology positively the results are far more fulfilling than when they use technology for negative purposes. If we don’t let our students use technology they won’t be able to learn that they can do incrediblly positive things with it.

Andrew Pass
http://www.pass-ed.com/Living-Textbook.html

7 On February 28th, 2007, Shonu said:

Perhaps one of the things that we need to help our students understand is that they matter. Our students are important. They have the power to use technology to produce incredible results. When they use technology positively the results are far more fulfilling than when they use technology for negative purposes. If we donâ€™t let our students use technology they wonâ€™t be able to learn that they can do incrediblly positive things with it.