Technology Distractions in School

           Schools today compared with schools of yesterday are extremely different in so many ways.  Technology is the main reason for this.  It has affected every part of our lives, school included.  Only 15 years ago, school consisted of huge textbooks, pencils and large libraries.  Today, school consists of computers and cell phones.  This is good in a lot of ways.  It allows students so many resources of information and connection.  However, it is terrible for students in many other ways including distraction and connection.  I used connection as both a positive and a negative here and the reason is because it is both.  It is good for students in that they may be able to reach professionals and teachers whenever they need to, but it is also bad because they can also reach friends and other distractions whenever they want as well.  This is bad for getting any learning or work done. 

Matt Richtel, 2013

            Procrastination has always been a barrier to students.  Despite this fact, time wasting and distractions have reached a new high thanks to the influence of stimuli offered by cell phones, computers and the internet (Richtel, 2010).  Just 15 years ago, students were procrastinating by watching TV or playing outside.  Today, students are procrastinating by watching TV, playing outside, playing video games, going on YouTube, texting with friends, going on Facebook and so many more options.  The list of distractions, with the inclusion of technology, goes on and on.  It may be the opinion of some that these distractions only exist at home, but certainly not at school.  This assumption would be erroneous though.  Computers play an important part in the classroom now, but students are not only doing schoolwork while on their computers at school.  Students are texting, shopping or browsing the internet at school which impedes their learning and the teaching performed by the teacher (Muyingi, 2014).  

 

Ryan Avery, 2017

            Due to all of the distractions offered by technology, and all of the positive uses of it in schools, some believe that it should integrate social media into the school environment and curriculum (Cheong, Shuter, and Suwinyattichaiporn, 2016).  The idea behind this thought is that if students are going to visit these internet sites anyway while at school, they should at least have some educational importance and relation.  I personally do not believe that we should accept bad behavior because it would be too difficult to rally against it.  The fact of the matter is that when students are distracted, important work is not being completed and students are not able to focus.  This is how life has always been for students.  One thing we learn in school is time management and how to manage distractions and still complete our tasks.  This should not be lost to today’s students just because they may have more distractions to guard against.  Instead we should help them deal with their many distractions and teach them how to manage in this digital age in which we live.  So I’ll finish with a couple questions so that I can have your views of this current dilemma.  How are we to manage technology and the distractions it presents in today’s classroom?  Should we include it or exclude it from our classrooms?  How can we keep students engaged in schoolwork instead of the distractions presented by the internet and their smartphones? 

References

Cheong, Pauline Hope, Shuter, Robert, Suwinyattichaiporn, Tara.  (2016).  Managing student digital distractions and hyperconnectivity: communication strategies and challenges for professorial authority.  Communication Education 63 (3).

Muyingi, H. (2014).  Factors contributing to technology-enabled distractions in the classroom: a case study of students at the Polytechnic of Namibia.  Polytechnic of Namibia 8 (1).

Richtel, Matt.  (2010).  Growing up digital, wired for distraction.  The New York Times.

Privacy and the Internet

Privacy is a term that has many different meanings depending on the person it describes and/or the person using it.  I used to think it had a simple meaning: privacy means not allowing other people to know things about you that you don’t want them to know.  However, since the internet has surfaced, privacy has taken on new dimensions to its previous “easy” definition.  The internet allows people access to banking, bill paying, education, social media and the list goes on and on.  In order to use these sites, people need to create passwords.  Passwords do not necessarily guarantee protection.  Hackers are constantly working to breach “secure sites” to obtain personal information.  Financial information is often a target for these hackers.  So, it would be easy to conclude that if a person wants privacy, they should not bank online.  This would be an erroneous conclusion because companies, including banks, have their customer information on their company databases (Punagin and Arya, 2015).  This could be an avenue for hackers to use (no matter how conscientious the consumer is) to obtain personal information.  This is becoming increasingly concerning for the majority of United States Citizens (Spiekermann and Cranor, 2009).  People are beginning to realize that seemly harmless perks like customer rewards cards are giving hackers an avenue to their personal information (Spiekermann and Cranor, 2009).  A person may conclude therefore, that the only “problem” the internet permits concerning privacy is a financial one.  To these people, I suggest we take another approach to the privacy issue. 

 

TaylorWessing, 2014

Social media is, to many people, a major function of the internet.  They use it to stay connected to people anywhere and everywhere.  We have seen numerous studies and reports that talk about the privacy issues and concerns that social media brings and the adage that once something has been posted on the internet, it’s always there.  Before concerns about privacy surfaced, people were posting very personal information to their accounts.  Now it seems that consumers of social media are starting to apply the suggested solutions to their accounts.  Almost simultaneously, companies that own social media platforms are also trying to adjust privacy issues from their end as well (Spiekermann and Cranor, 2009).  Therefore, it would seem that these sites are as private as they can be.  However, there is one variable that can’t really be accounted for: the user. 

 

Lori David, 2014

 Novices and children are very vulnerable to the internet and all of its uses.  Children are almost required to use the internet for education purposes.  Their personal information, grades, assignments, readings and homework may be entirely online.  This opens up another danger (other than social media) to children and their families.  Parents and teachers may opt to download and recommend apps or web sites that claim to help the students in their education, but these sites have not been adequately vetted for privacy by the school (Singer, 2015).  Many districts have already seen data breaches of their systems (Singer, 2015).  Therefore, some schools are just now beginning to think about teaching a privacy curriculum.  This would teach children about the dangers of the internet and the positive implications of privacy (Egelman, Bernd, Friedland and Garcia, 2016).  Should schools be teaching internet privacy to their students?  If so, where does the school’s responsibility end and the parent’s responsibility begin?

References

Engelman, Serge, Bernd, Julia, Friedland, Gerald, Garcia, Dan.  (2016).  The teaching privacy curriculum.  International Computer Science Institute.

Punagin, Saraswathi and Arya, Arti.  (2015).  Privacy in the age of pervasive internet and big data analytics – challenges and opportunities.  I.J. Modern Education and Computer Science, 7 (36-47).

Singer, Natasha.  (2015).  Privacy pitfalls as education apps spread haphazardly.  The New York Times.  https://nyti.ms/1Ms03de

Spiekermann, Sarah and Cranor, Lorrie Faith.  (2009).  Engineering privacy.  IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering, 35 (1). 

   

The Internet, Porn and Education

The Internet is fantastic.  We use it for education, research, posting, sharing, social connection and so many other things.  However, the Internet is also scary.  There are many facets of the Internet that are appropriate and inappropriate for all different ages.  This fact makes us ask ourselves an important question:  How do we safeguard our children against the inappropriate and attention grabbing sites? 

            I think it’s safe to say that we all realize that students need to use the Internet to enhance their education.  It is used in schools and at the homes of the students.  So how do we protect our children from stumbling onto, or purposefully accessing inappropriate sites such as porn?  The general consensus is that porn is not suitable for children.  This is demonstrated by the fact that it is illegal for anyone under the age of 18.  Despite knowing this, we cannot monitor our children 24/7 online.  Because of this, there is software that blocks inappropriate sites from being accessed. 

 

Salman Khan, 2013

There are a few issues with using this software though.  One such issue is that this software blocks a general group of websites which could limit children from accessing sites that they need to be able to access to do homework (Shulevitz, 2016).  The software could “over-filter” which would block a child’s access to an appropriate site or “under-filter” which would not block access to inappropriate sites (Melgosa and Scott, 2013).  This is a major problem that we face while trying to protect our children from accessing sexually explicit material.  The problem of children seeing this material is not only that it is illegal for them to see, but also that it can promote poor body image and a skewed view of “normal” sexual activity (Shulevitz, 2016).  Access to porn by children also increases their risk of becoming vulnerable to sexual predators and messages spreading hate (Thornburgh and Lin, 2004).

 Hokenson, 2015

Blocking software is not the only possible way to filter what sites children have access to on the Internet.  Congress has passed two bills over the past twenty years limiting the access to porn by children; however, these bills have been invalidated by the Supreme Court citing infringement on adults’ First Amendment rights (Shulevitz, 2016).  This is the problem with governmental regulation of issues such as these.  Censorship of these sites violates the rights of adults, yet leaves children vulnerable to inappropriate material.  This conundrum is very hard to reconcile.  This is precisely the reason why the government has not instituted any type of censorship on these harmful Internet sites.

It is the view of many, that schools need to block the inappropriate sites with the best tools they have available to them, while teaching students about the possible harm of accessing these sites (Melgosa and Scott, 2013).  Others believe that it is the government’s responsibility to censor the Internet.  There are problems and merits to both of these approaches.  Do you believe that children should not be allowed to access this material?  What do you believe would be the most effective way to control the sites that children have access to?  Do you believe schools should use these tools to block certain sites on their computers?

References

Melgosa, Annette and Scott, Rudy.  (2013).  School internet safety.  More than 'block it to stop it'.  The Journal of Adventist Education, 26-31.

Shulevitz, Judith.  (2016).  It's O.K., liberal parents, you can freak out about porn.  The New York Times.  https://nyti.ms/2a6zaV5. 

Thornburgh, Dick and Lin, Herbert.  (2004).  Youth, pornography, and the internet.  Issues in Science and Technology, 20-2. 

Blogging: What's it all about?

So I'm going to start my first post with a brutally honest statement:  I really didn't know anything about blogging.  I didn't know where to find blogs, how to write blogs or how to comment on blogs.  I also didn't really even know the use of blogs or why people created them.  This has all changed now. 

 https://www.google.com/search?q=blogging&biw=1440&bih=709&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAp8KHl9TRAhVk4YMKHa2nApkQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=GH8pUu8ZIXj-TM%3A


I realized through looking for blogs online that they are in fact, incredibly easy to find, read and post a comment.  I also realized that blogs exist for almost every topic imaginable.  They are a great way to spread knowledge and/or gain knowledge.  They allow every person an outlet for anything they may want to talk about, raise awareness about or get advice about.  This is something that has never been possible before and could be of great use in the classrooms of K12 educators all over the world.

Although I'm just beginning my blogging journey, I already see so many uses of blogs in my future as an educator.  Blogs can be used by educators to:

• Get feedback and/or advice from other educators about techniques that work well for them
• Post ideas they have come up with, that work well in their classroom
• Spread their experience of teaching to other less experienced educators
• Expand in class discussion (Wang and Hsua, 2008)
• Enable participation by otherwise shy students
• Encourage participation and dissent in a respectful environment 

These are just to name a few.  Blogs allow educators to bring variability to their teaching practices.  This helps students to stay engaged.  It can get extremely boring to do the same type of assignments over and over again.  Blogs are one way to break the monotony present, in the students' eyes, in many classroom environments.  It has been documented by many scholars that students' appreciate and value the opportunity to have their voices heard.  This is a great way to embrace and encourage that behavior from students.  Blogging enables students to: 

• Get feedback on projects and assignments from professionals as well as classmates
• Converse with people of different cultures from all over the world
• Explore the value and the importance of diversity
• Communicate easily and frequently in class discussions and with the professor
• Feel more comfortable when dissenting with each other
• Promote honesty during discussions     

 https://www.google.com/search?q=blogging&biw=1440&bih=709&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAp8KHl9TRAhVk4YMKHa2nApkQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=0lCuGD6jsGLziM%3A


Globalization is happening now and students in school today need to learn and appreciate multiculturalism in order to thrive in the employment world they will be entering.  Blogs are a great way to help accomplish this goal because they can be read and commented on by people anywhere.  Students are no longer limited by the views of their classmates.  Blogs are one of the many tools that current students have to aid them in their full education and development into adulthood, college and career.  This is an advantage that students just ten years ago didn't have.  Due to this fact, educators should learn about and exploit these tools for all they are worth.


While using blogs, educators do need to be careful and knowledgeable of what and where they are posting information.  A downside of blogging is that blogs are public (Wang and Hsua, 2008).  They can be read and commented on by anyone, anywhere.  As I stated above, this is a positive about blogging which can help expand the discussion (Wang and Hsua, 2008).  However, depending on who is reading and commenting, this can also be detrimental.  An educator must monitor what is posted by students to ensure that it is appropriate, while at the same time monitoring what is commented by individuals that are not associated with the class because they could inadvertently teaching misinformation.

I look forward to hearing other perspectives on this issue.  Thanks for reading and I'll talk to you at the next post! 

Sources:

Google Images: https://www.google.com/search?q=blogging&biw=1440&bih=709&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAp8KHl9TRAhVk4YMKHa2nApkQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=GH8pUu8ZIXj-TM%3A
and
https://www.google.com/search?q=blogging&biw=1440&bih=709&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiAp8KHl9TRAhVk4YMKHa2nApkQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=0lCuGD6jsGLziM%3A

Wang, Shiang-Kwei and Hsua, Hui-Yin.  2008.  Reflections on using blogs to expand in-class discussions.  TechTrends 52(3).