Beware the Chat

I received this email from a parent this week:

I just caught [our daughter] chatting online on iwon.  My husband and I spent a lot of time explaining how bad chatting online is and why she is not allowed to do it.  She argued with me that your class chats with another class in California and with other students in her class.

In a Skype conference with a class North Carolina, I added a backchannel chat.   It allowed more than one student to talk at a time, and the students enjoyed it immensely.  Given more time, they could have learned a lot from each other.

I explained the difference, but I would think this is an appropriate age to explain the dangers of chatting.  If you class considers this an expectable activity I think it is VERY important to discuss the dangers.  I feel like [she] understands why it is not appropriate to ever chat online and I would really like to hear that this is reinforced in your classroom.

My response: The first topic we discussed this year was digital citizenship and online safety:  how to be do the right things online and how to stay safe online. They must practice safety and avoid inappropriate place online, just like they must in real life. I did not tell them chatting was bad.  Chatting is just a tool, however they can make dangerous choices with it.  Chatting is not inherently evil, but ones intended for children are much safer than general chat sites that allow anyone in.

I don’t think an 8 year old should be using the computer for anything other than education.

I agree we need to teach them how to use technology to learn, not just to entertain themselves.  They can easily learn to entertain themselves on their own.  Someone has to teach them how to learn with it.

Ever?  Sorry to disappoint her, but there are appropriate times to chat online.  I can’t argue with computers being used for education.  Who is going to teach them how to do that?

I did let her occasionally play games online but I am putting a stop to that for fear of sights like iwon.  I realize that it is important to learn to use the computer, but knowing that the police are spending our tax dollars chatting online trying to catch child molesters, I think it is our job to protect our children at school and at home from this activity.

I agree with you that we need to protect our children at school and at home from dangerous people online.  Just banning technology tools does not teach them.  Showing them how to learn with it appropriately does.  We must monitor their online activity, to ensure they are following online safety rules.  I see you are already doing that.  That’s great!  Keep up the good work.

My husband and I have decided that [she] is not allowed to do any chatting online at school or at home.

You said that you are not allowing [her]to chat online at home or at school.  You can do what you want at home, but would like to you talk to me before you restrict what we do at school.  I’m happy to talk to you more about this if you want.

Was I out of line with this comment?  Apparently so.  Her dad responded with this…

Please, please do not presume that you have any right to tell me what is best for my child. You are my daughter’s 3^rd grade teacher, I am her father, and I will make the decisions when it comes to my daughter’s safety and well-being. We do not need to have any further discussion regarding what my wife and I decide is best for our child. My wife politely informed you that we did not want Megan chatting online while she is at school, now I am telling you that MY DAUGHTER WILL NOT BE CHATTING ONLINE IN YOUR CLASSROOM OR IN ANYONE ELSE’S CLASSROOM WHILE SHE IS AT SCHOOL.

I was just asking for a little discussion here.

I am not the most computer savvy person in the world, but I really do not understand how or why chatting online would be considered to be a tool.

I sounds to me like he is definitely not an expert in this area.

When I hear the words chatting and online used together, I immediately think of people wasting time at work. I honestly do not believe that chatting online serves as any kind of useful tool. The only skill that might be acquired from doing so would be from the repetition of typing, which can also be acquired from doing any number of different tasks, which are also considerably safer for a child.

My Response:  I do believe there is a benefit to a live password-protected classroom chat over a live focused classroom discussion.  During a class discussion only one person at a time is speaking, and thus only one at a time is actively engaged.  In a chat, everyone can talk and are engaged at once.  The most verbal students no longer dominate the discussion while the quiet student are less involved.  As they explain their learning and others read others their thinking, they can learn from each other.  Writing, rather than talking forces them to think more about what they are saying.  The chat is a more engaging form of classroom discussion, not just social entertainment.

When I hear chatting online and children in the same sentence I immediately think of the sexual predators that we read about in the newspaper or see on the nightly news. I think of the police conducting internet stings, pretending to be children (at about my daughters age), so they can try to apprehend these sexual predators before they hurt, abuse, molest, or murder another child. I think of the emails that I have received telling me to be on the lookout for this guy or that guy who has been seen hanging around school yards, who is a known sexual offender. I think of missing children’s faces that I have seen on milk cartons or on the nightly news. I think of the mothers and fathers who will never see their children again. I think of how awful that must be for a person to endure and then I think of my children. I cringe at the very thought of someone harming one hair on my child’s head. Now as all of these scenarios are running through my brain, I get very, very angry and I think of what I would do to a person who had hurt, abused, molested, or murdered my child.

I explained the rules for online safety.  The guideline is that they must be very careful about the information they with share with people online.

1. They must not share personal information that will allow people find their location.  They must not share their first and last name, parents names, address, city, school, phone number, or photos with their name.
2. If someone they met online asks to meet them offline, they are to so “no” and immediately tell an adult they trust.
3. If someone online says inappropriate words, then they must tell an adult.

These three rules will keep them safe as long as they don’t break them.

I understand how he would be so upset.  These sensationalized stories by the media have given social media a bad name.  However, child molesters do not reach through the screen and pull the children out of their chairs.  The children (teens) made bad decisions.  Had they known and followed the rules of online safety, I feel these tragedies could have been averted.

After much deliberation, I am still undecided as to whether or not I should have this discussion with the school board.

WHAT!?  This ticked me off.   He threatened to turn his ignorant fear into fearmongering aimed at the school board.

I feel very strongly that children, even children who are much older than Megan, are at best very gullible, they are unable to police themselves, and they do not know what is best for them. They don’t know how to recognize when someone is trying to trick them in to doing something. Having fun is on their brain all of the time and doing something new and adventurous that their parents don’t really need to know about probably sounds like a lot of fun to an eight year old child.

I believe that children are smarter than he gives his daughter credit for.  They can learn the rules to stay safe.

The very fact that they need online safety rules to abide by to protect them proves my point.

The fact that they need online safety rules proves my point.  We use the rules so they can and do learn to stay safe online.

You said in your letter that you are passionate about teaching kids how to be safe online and that not doing so endangers them. Why should we expose our children, especially at this age, to something that could endanger them? It just does not make any sense at all.

Why do we endanger our kids every day by taking them in a car.  Children are killed in cars everyday.  Yet, we need to get them to school and elsewhere, so it is worth the risk.  Yes, there is a risk in allowing our kids use the internet.  However, if we teach them online safety, we can reduce that risk so much that the learning that can take place using the internet is worth it.  The benefits can be huge!

You spoke of a password protected chat program, which would restrict access, the very existence of this password protected, restricted access chat room proves my point. Not to mention the problems with all of the hackers out there, didn’t I just read that the school computer system had been hacked, resulting in huge losses for the school system? Do we not think there are hackers out there who are also sexual predators? I know that I do.

You do?  Or do you just think you know?  I think you don’t.  Most sexual predators are looking for easy prey.  Trying to hack a password protected chat isn’t worth the effort for them.  There are too many unprotected already to choose from.  Most hackers are criminals looking for money or just a challenge, not hacking into a classroom chat to lure out children.  Don’t you think we would notice him in the chat?

We want [her] to learn as much as she possibly can and we want her to be able to use a computer efficiently. There are so many ways to capture an eight year olds attention, especially when they are sitting in front of a computer, why should we use a method that in your own words endangers them? A method, I might add, that I believe has little or no benefit. Please encourage and teach our child how to use a computer in a manner that will be beneficial to her now and in the future.

Uh, that’s what I was doing…teaching her to use a computer in a manner beneficial now and in the future.  We just don’t see eye-to-eye on this.  I realized that we had two very different perspectives on social media like chat rooms.  I knew that I would not be able to change his mind, so I had aquiece.

I ended with: Following your wishes, [she] will not be allowed to use the chat function here at school, whether password-protected or not.

I know this was a long post, but I thought the conversation was important.  This is real.  Parents don’t always see things the way we edtechies do.  We often blog inside our edtech echo chamber and forget the other perspectives.  These parents are not alone and must be considered when we talk of change through technology in education.

My take-away lesson from this conversation was this.  You may have to go before the school board to explain the rationale for your teaching practice or using a certain technology tool.  You’d better have your justification ready at hand, or don’t use it until you do.  If you are called onto the carpet, be ready.

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Lessons learned from my class Skype meeting

My class met last Friday (4-18-08) with Mrs. Page Sorey’s 3rd grade class at Nag’s Head Elementary in NC. It is right next to Kitty Hawk, NC. I blogged about it Episode 4 - Earth Day Skype podcast on our class blog Our Global Refrigerator Door. You can also listen to part of the conversation on the podcast there.

Upon reflection, here are a few lessons learned about Skype conferencing for next time.

• Do a test call beforehand to test connections.
• Have students ask questions of students at the other location.
• Have an order to go in as far as who asks and who answers questions.
• Have them prepared with a question and allow them to ask follow-up questions.
• Sometimes the best nuggets come from spontaneous conversations.
• Vivid verbal descriptions really help to envision what the speaker is saying.
• It would be great if we could snap a picture of the class to send to other class just as the conference starts. That way we have someone to look at during the voice chat.
• We really had a good time just getting to know each other.
• The weather is not the same in different parts of the country at the same time.
• We looked up beforehand the location of who we were talking to, so we could see that the typography was like.

I still have some questions I haven’t resolved.

1. How do you make sure everyone heard what was said?
2. How can the IT department help the quality of the connection?
3. What do you do about only one person being able to talk at a time when you have a whole class of students who want a turn?
4. Can we tie it to a content curriculum objective as well as a Communication Arts objective?
5. What are the best practices for a Skype conference?

The kids were really excited just to live the experience of a live Skype conference.

We’ll get better each time an build our way up to global collaboration in our classroom. Let me now if you would like to collaborate with your class.

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