YouTube, Improper Use in Middle School

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?