Category: Module 4

I spend very little time with children, save for holidays, birthdays and random visits to my sister’s place where I get to ‘hang’ with my niece & nephew who are both 16.  Very little time, that is, if you don’t count the almost daily exchanges of IMs on messenger and updates on facebook they send, so I don’t feel particularly qualified to comment on how to deal with internet safety for kids.  I can, therefore, only speak of my own experiences, for the moment, as a student and a teacher who is/has undertaken an educational adventure into the wild, wild world (www….) of cyberspace (though admittedly I’m not entirely certain whether this www was thrust upon me or whether I thrust myself into it), a space where I practice privacy in my presence and am ceaselessly cautious about what I see and who I trust, using many of the same rules drilled into me by my parents as a child, including: don’t take candy from strangers (in fact, don’t talk to strangers), if its too good to be true, it probably is, and, yes, even, don’t run with scissors.  I believe that I am more cautious now then I was in my late teens and early twenties, but perhaps that comes from knowledge gained through life and learning experiences and not because I am an old ‘fuddy duddy’ (as my 20 year old niece exclaimed the other day using, ‘an expression you might understand’) but that remains to be seen.

After doing a quick Google search on ‘teaching internet safety to children’ I came across the article Kids the Internet and the End of Privacy: The Greatest Generation Gap Since Rock ‘n Roll.  I’ll hit the highlights here, the comments that struck a chord – and in some cases, dischord – with me.  For example, while I have heard myself speak similarly to these comments about kids and online presence, which would suggest that I tend to agree with them:

Kids today. They have no sense of shame. They have no sense of privacy. They are show-offs, fame whores, pornographic little loons who post their diaries, their phone numbers, their stupid poetry—for God’s sake, their dirty photos!—online. They have virtual friends instead of real ones. They talk in illiterate instant messages. They are interested only in attention—and yet they have zero attention span, flitting like hummingbirds from one virtual stage to another. (Nussbaum, 2007. P2)

“When it is more important to be seen than to be talented, it is hardly surprising that the less gifted among us are willing to fart our way into the spotlight,” sneers Lakshmi Chaudhry in the current issue of The Nation. “Without any meaningful standard by which to measure our worth, we turn to the public eye for affirmation.” (Ibid)

the one that followed,

Clay Shirky, a 42-year-old professor of new media at NYU’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, who has studied these phenomena since 1993, has a theory about that response. “Whenever young people are allowed to indulge in something old people are not allowed to, it makes us bitter. What did we have? The mall and the parking lot of the 7-Eleven? It sucked to grow up when we did! And we’re mad about it now.” People are always eager to believe that their behavior is a matter of morality, not chronology, Shirky argues. “You didn’t behave like that because nobody gave you the option.”

well, that one struck a nerve.  And, it got worse.

More young people are putting more personal information out in public than any older person ever would—and yet they seem mysteriously healthy and normal, save for an entirely different definition of privacy… Younger people, one could point out, are the only ones for whom it seems to have sunk in that the idea of a truly private life is already an illusion…. So it may be time to consider the possibility that young people who behave as if privacy doesn’t exist are actually the sane people, not the insane ones. (Ibid)

So, maybe I am a fuddy duddy.

The author continues, discussing some of the (possibly neurological) changes the internet has affected on its citizens (as opposed to an immigrant like myself) as follows:

CHANGE 1: THEY THINK OF THEMSELVES AS HAVING AN AUDIENCE

CHANGE 2: THEY HAVE ARCHIVED THEIR ADOLESCENCE

CHANGE 3: THEIR SKIN IS THICKER THAN YOURS

The conclusion?  Well, the privacy/safety issue was pretty much sidestepped.  ‘Think of the potential’: as with all new technologies, there are going to be gains and losses.   My conclusion?  I find scissors very useful but I am quite happy just walking with them.  As for parents and educators of the net generation, I am glad to see that there is good help out there, or should I say, when it comes to ‘net’ safety and to help ‘bridge the gap’.

Nussbaum, E. (2007) “Say Everything – Kids the Internet and the End of Privacy: The Greatest Generation Gap Since

Rock ‘n Roll.” New York 12 Feb. 2007

Retrieved on 13 March 2010 from: http://nymag.com/news/features/27341/

One of the big differences for me between the Wiki and forum in an LMS was actually visual.  Being able to see the whole ‘discussion’ on one page really helped me follow the train of thought.  That said, I didn’t think that there was a tremendous amount of discussing going on.  The class kind of skipped Step 2 and jumped right into step 3, composing a page as a group.  I’m not entirely certain why this happened, but I’m finding it really challenging figuring out where to jump in as I feel pressured to come up with a well formulated strategy or challenge rather than, say, a more random ‘blue, white, or green hat’ brainstorm type post.  In my LMS experiences, each student, for whatever reason, feels compelled to contribute or start his/her own discussion thread when a forum is set up.  While this can lead to all sorts of great discussion tangents, there can also be a lot of crossover between threads which can be really tough (for me) to keep track of.

For group collaborations (of any size), Wiki’s are definitely a good option.  In addition to my earlier comment about following the train of thought, the ability for participants to jump in wherever they want with ideas, to move ideas around, to track the history of the project, amongst other things, allows for a lot of flexibility and both independent and inspired creativity.  Wiki’s remind me of Google Docs, which I’ve used very successfully both on MET course projects and with my colleagues at work.  In fact, using a Wiki or Google Docs in a business course for students to do a collaborative project would be a great way for an instructor to see the process of planning the students engage in as well as the progress of their project.  I think it would give the instructor a good sense of their project management skills.  Hmmm….

The challenge I found with this particular wiki activity, and, oddly enough, in previous experiences (in other courses) with wiki activities was in the project management, or lack thereof.  Perhaps it is because I have a background in business but I am lost without some kind of project planning (“Plans are of little importance but planning is essential” Winston Churchill) whether I’m in a group or working on my own.  In smaller groups (3 to 6 people), this planning process can be a little looser, but in larger groups it really has to be tight (explicit – e.g. roles assigned, detailed – e.g. timelines).  How might I explain why this planning (i.e. discussion) did not occur?  Too many modest/polite Canadians in the mix, perhaps….