Newfound Technocalities

This is an old movie (2001) but it’s still a good one. A little inspiration for your new year – may it be a great one!
When I become a teacher…

This month, results of a poll dealing with kids’ habits and attitudes with regard to sharing music were released. The report deals with what the Recording Industry Association of America calls “schoolyard piracy” – the burning and sharing of purchased music. It reads in part:

Among teens ages 12 to 17 who were polled, 69% said they believed it was legal to copy a CD from a friend who purchased the original. By comparison, only 21% said it was legal to copy a CD if a friend got the music free. Similarly, 58% thought it was legal to copy a friend’s purchased DVD or videotape, but only 19% thought copying was legal if the movie wasn’t purchased.

It’s interesting that there’s a difference in numbers between purchased media and downloaded-free media. How did kids learn to make that distinction? What does it mean?

Whether you agree or disagree with the RIAA is not the point. The reality is that technology keeps making it easier to do things like share favorite songs with your friends. But should increased ease of use lead to changes in individual responsibility? How does this relate to other areas of our lives that technology has simplified? And most importantly, what’s our role as educators in this issue?

Here’s the link to the article. Is Copying A Crime? Well…

I’m a huge fan of Google. Their maps are the best, the calendar feature is wonderfully handy, and I love to check in on Google Labs periodically to see what the Google Folks are up to. Of course, Google is also an amazing search engine – for adults. But here’s another reason to reconsider using it with kids in school.

In an attempt to keep up with the popularity of sites like YouTube, Google is now letting users upload amateur video. Go to to the Google site and “Video” is simply displayed along with Web, Images, and all the other Google choices. But a click on “Video” leads the viewer to a page showing the opening frames of the most popular videos and their titles. And many of them are simply not for kids’ eyes. I tried changing Preferences (right next to the Google search box) in Google’s Safe Search to “strict filitering” but still, the same objectionable videos and titles appear.

The teacher in me constantly struggles with issues like this. Is it possible to teach kids to ignore this kind of content when there’s so much of it right there in front of them? Do we let it come their way, hoping they will make responsible choices? Or do we take steps to keep them from seeing it in the first place? And, if we do that, how do our students learn the discrimination skills they’ll need to have in place when no one is there to make the decisions for them? Any ideas?

Thanks to Steve Dembo at Teach42.com for blogging this to my attention. If you’re looking for a Google alternative to searching with kids, here’s the Reference & Research page I compiled last year. It’s a list of kid-friendly search engines and directories – perhaps not as good as Google, but certainly safer.

This summer, Bonnie Beadle (NMMS) and I attended an institute sponsored by the state that dealt with NH’s new ICT (Information and Communication Technology) standards. In a nutshell, the state is now requiring districts to have an integrated approach to the use of 21st century tools in the education of each of its students. In addition, digital portfolios must be developed to document student growth in technology skills over time.

At this point, much of the control over how this will be implemented lies with the local district. We’ll start slow and we’ll start small. But we will start.

If you’ve done some integration of technology into content areas, you’re on your way to fulfulling this year’s expectation. If you haven’t – it’s time to get on board. As an educator, you owe it to your kids to begin equipping them for their future in a world that’s changing so quickly, we can’t even predict it.