The Irony of the Internet

It has been a very interesting week to be a teacher. I have just recently finished reading William Kist’s great book The Socially Networked Classroom. The book started so many ideas swirling in my head that I had to start reading it all over again when I put it down, this time taking notes of ideas along the way. Great book…. and for those of you out there wanting to dip a toe into the use of blogs, wiki’s and the like with your students a very user friendly book with something for folks of all sorts of varying tech abilities.

A teaching "must-read"!

Then, lo and behold, at what felt like an ironic moment for where my head was at, my own state of Missouri decided to become the first state to pass legislation that seeks to limit the sorts of contact that students and teachers may have with one another on social media sites! If you haven’t heard about MO SB 54 – get ready, you will be hearing about it in the weeks ahead as I am sure it will most likely be challenged in a variety of ways. The ACLU is already looking into it.

I must admit, my first reaction was one of knee-jerk anger to this new bill. It made me angry that the actions of a few imbecilic and unethical teachers would prompt the lawmakers of my state into drafting such a broad sweeping sort of law. The sheer scope of the legislation almost guarantees it will be unenforceable in some aspects. How do you monitor a web community of 500+ million users? Who lets you in to do that? What rights do teachers have or not as far as their use of independently established social media sites? The list of questions is a long one.

Then I took a step back and thought about it. Of course, it’s not a good practice for teachers to be “friending” minors, but don’t we want them “in the room” as mentors when there are real-life skills about using this media to be learned? Do we want to abdicate as adults and leave our kids “out there” in the wild wild West of social media? Let’s face it, if a teacher wants to act inappropriately in their communications with a student, aren’t there a myriad of ways to accomplish that which cannot be legislated away?

So I am torn on this one. As I get set to begin a year with each of my students having a powerful internet-connected tool in their hands, I also want them to know that I can be beside them in the classroom helping them learn how to navigate this world safely. I still sting at the thought of teachers being perceived as some sort of cyber-monsters by my state legislators, and I think they created a law they will have difficulties enforcing, but I understand that at the heart of it all, they care about kids. So do I. It will be interesting to see how we find better ways to do that together. I am also going to be interested in hearing all the talk among teachers, students, and parents that this bill may raise. Maybe that will be the best thing to come out of it all.