“My students have my Mobile number”
It is not often that I sit down and write and words and thoughts just flow out, but that happened today. I have been taking part in a discussion happening over on Dan Meyer’s blog regarding students having a teachers mobile number.
A person left a comment stating in this discussion that said, “Yet another reason why internet filtering technology and cell phone bans are so successful.”
It turned out that the commenter was being sarcastic and I missed it. Whoops! Sorry Bill!
Anyway, this got me going (before I knew the post was fake) and I left a comment sharing my thoughts on the topic.
I like how it turned out so I am re-posting it here. Here is the reply that I left:
“Yet another reason why internet filtering technology and cell phone bans are so successful.”
Wow! What a statement. Not my cup of tea, but to each their own.
My opinion is that we are educators because we want to teach students something. Whether that be history, math, or whatever. In my case, I teach Industrial Technology (Shop Class). I consider it part my job to teach the procedures and understand how to safely use the tools and equipment before I turn them loose.
Who is teaching them how to properly and productively use the internet? Who is teaching them to use their cell phones properly and productively? In most cases, no one. Does that mean that they students are not using them, heck no. Once they leave school their cell phones are out and in action. At home, most have unfiltered internet.
As an educational system, I really think that we are missing out on teaching some basic skills that many of our students are missing.
Is the answer to filter the internet and ban cell phones, maybe. In my opinion we should be opening these up, teaching their proper usage and show the students how powerful these tools can be.
Just my 2 cents, keeps the change.
May 29th, 2008 at 12:44 pm
Hello, Evan,
I just saw the trackback over on Dan’s site — as he pointed out, I was not serious.
But I’m glad that I helped get the creative juices flowing!
While you’ve probably seen this already, my favorite cautionary tale about the follies of filtering is the one that came out last August — google “australian student cracks filtering software” (I’ll refrain from linking to the story so as not to rouse the spam-eating beast) — the short version: 84 million for filtering software cracked by a student in 30 minutes. The replacement software: cracked in 40 minutes.
The lesson about filtering software: priceless.
Except, of course, that taxpayer dollars (in the states, anyways) are still being spent on filtering software as a requirement for public schools to be eligible for e-rate money.
Cheers,
Bill