Source: http://www.harunyahya.com/books/science/devotion/images_devotion/musk_oxen.jpg

Maybe, it’s time to abandon a deistic approach to network protection in schools. Why do I say that? I read this interesting piece while searching for my perception of how school districts perceive Web 2.0 tools–as an enemy to form a defensive circle against.

Ask for permission, go with hat in hand to your Internet filter and say, “May I please, please have access to social media sites that I can use to enhance teaching and learning?” The question that arises is, “Does that social media site you want to use referenced in the curriculum scope and sequence? Is it in your lesson plan? Will it help students achieve 10 point increase on math and science test scores?”

(BTW, it’s amazing how many vendors are now stating that their product will improve math/science test scores)

Alan Levine complains:

I’ve never suffered the degradation of working in an organization that acted as my Net Mommy– one that told me I was not old enough or mature enough to monitor my own internet activity.

I pity my colleagues in Australia where, as one emailed me tonight, some arbitrary machine of divine intelligence has decided that the organization I work for, the New Media Consortium is on the nasty list for the crime of … “Arts/Entertainment”….

And if there’s any data available on this topic, it’s clear that school districts are uniformly holding their ground, like a herd of musk oxen in defensive circle. COSN recently published their report on Leadership for Web 2.0 in Education: Promise and Reality. One of their goals was to, Investigate and document how organizational and policy issues are critical obstacles for the effective deployment of Web 2.0 in teaching and learning programs of schools.

Kerrie Smith (You Are Never Alone) summarizes some of the findings, which demonstrate the double-think of American administrators…it’s a double-think I had the chance to observe first-hand at the recent TCEA TEC-SIG Meeting in Austin.

While many admire the use of these tools in their own lives, they deny students access to them, instead choosing to allow our children to walk alone in virtual neighborhoods that they are driven to, simply because of the fear of physical assault in America today. The truth is, most technology coordinators in school districts are powerless to fight off the business approaches that seek to “safeguard,” not our children’s opportunities to be prepared for learning in the present century, but rather, the public reputation of organizations and functionaries who conflate their own interests with those of our children.

Can such hypocrisy continue? Consider the contradictions in the first set of findings and the second:

• USA school district administrators are overwhelmingly positive about the impact of Web 2.0 on students’ lives and on their education.
• Keeping students interested and engaged in school is the top priority for Web 2.0 use in American schools.
• Curriculum directors reported that Web 2.0 will be used most effectively at all grade levels in the content areas of social studies, writing, science, and reading.
• While there was broad agreement that Web 2.0 applications hold educational value, the use of these tools in American classrooms remains the province of individual pioneering classrooms…Web 2.0 is outpacing K-12 education’s current capacity to innovate.

and the second set:

• The majority of district administrators believe that student use of Web 2.0 should be limited to participation on approved educational websites.
• The majority of school districts ban social networking (70%) and chat rooms (72%) while allowing prescribed educational use for most of the other Web 2.0 tools (e.g., blogging, using wikis, sharing music or sound files, sharing visual media, posting messages, participating in virtual worlds, playing interactive games, creating polls or surveys, etc.).

Simply put, it’s easier to support these tools when they don’t threaten the status quo and endanger the jobs of grown-ups who must make a living as “educators.” Web 2.0 tools–and those who use them–are the ever-present threat from the outside. Business articles that thrive on fear, such as the one below, provide the justification needed to business-oriented, education professionals who keep flick the off switch on any technology, such as FOSS, cloud computing, netbooks, anything that gives users more freedom:

The analyst firm warns web 2.0 applications could herald widespread identity theft and transaction fraud, give malware a new infection super highway, erode social networks and eventually create a total consumer loss of confidence in the web platform.
Source: Web 2.0 Threat Looms

Will heaping criticism on folks bring about desired change? Certainly not. However, it is fun to imagine slow-moving, dense K-12 school districts with their rich cultures of pseudo-conflict as musk oxen forming defensive circles against those who embrace new technologies.

Which would you rather be? Predator or prey?

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