Teaching 6th and 7th graders proper internet usage is of course one of my top priorities as a technology educator yet I find myself still pondering wether my school should allow students access to Youtube. Currently e have access and it is one of the many reasons I took this particular position. Open technology, Yeah!
Recently we have implemented a new eportfolio system at my school district called Mahara. With it comes the ability to download videos and post comments on a wall similar to facebook. A dream come true, yet as I have used it to grade projects in the past few months, I am absolutely appalled at some of the content students are williing to put on their school eportfolio profiles. Do they not hear us? Do they not care? It has gotten to the point where my school is strongly considering removing youtube access. We teach young adults and they make their own choices, after we teach them proper internet usage, how can we help them make the proper decisions about proper content? How do we get our student to see that we teach proper content for a reason and thay thier choices will have the negative side effect of having filters put in place?
1 comment:
I think that the use of YouTube in middle schools should be permitted. Students are required to sign internet usage agreements with the school and if those individuals choose to misuse the privilege then they should not be allowed internet access. The entire school should not have to sacrifice a valuable information source due to the ill usage of others. I personally found YouTube videos in your class to be very helpful especially during the Google unit. In conclusion, I believe that You Tube should not be removed from schools because it is a reference tool and many students benefit from the use of it in their classrooms.
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