Sunday, July 26, 2009

Privacy and Security

Privacy is an up and coming issue for both students and teachers with increased use of internet in the classroom. With the increasing monitoring systems that schools can use to monitor student and teachers computer access, schools need to find the balance between too much security and empowering students to make their own decisions. Exeter has a pretty good filter that prohibits the students from getting to websites that would be inappropriate. Many times you hear the students complaining about the filter. They believe that they are responsible enough to decide what they should be looking at online.

After discussing the issues behind security and privacy on the internet in the modern classroom I have two suggestions for Exeter to empower teachers to better educate and guide students on the use of the internet.

What to do
1. Give the teachers the information on security and privacy issues that students and the school deal with when using the internet. I thought it very interesting the facts about teachers that were included at http://staysafeonline.mediaroom.com/index.php?s=67&item=45. It basically stated that more than half of all teachers not comfortable with understanding these issues or teaching students about the problems that they will face on the internet. So this session or information should be the basics of internet issues. I know that my district has a good AUP, but most of the teachers do not really know what it entails.

2. Teach the teachers to use the software available to them. In my district it is Sync Eyes. We are able to view the student computer screens and control their computers if need be. I know that I am one of very few teachers that use this software because most of them are not aware of it. It also has very good uses in the classroom such as displaying one of the student’s computers for the rest of the class, chatting with students, or syncing all students to a particular internet resource.

Pros: Educating the teachers is the first step towards teaching students to use technology properly, especially when it comes to such important issues as privacy and security. When teachers are aware of all of the tools available to them they will be better equipped to use the technology in their classrooms which will benefit students as they will be most assuredly working in a technology centered world in the future.

Cons: As with the rest of the suggestions for use of the internet and it’s implications in the classroom, this will require time. An individual will need to put time into planning the best way to educate teachers in both of these areas and then the teachers will need to take the time to learn and practice the new information.

No comments:

Post a Comment