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The Internet is embedded in and encompasses virtually all of human life, positive, negative and neutral.

All that happens online is much more symptomatic (sometimes an early warning system) than a cause of social problems that we’ve been working on addressing since long before we had the Internet.

On the other hand, I work with teachers now that are often running scared – very scared at times. They are blocked from using much technology, teachers that use drill and skills based software are praised, those that ask about doing anything online are scoffed at … they have to go out of their way and jump through 5 hoops all the time knowing that if things aren’t 100% smooth they will be questioned about safety, educational value, whether they have their students best interest and safety in mind and on and on. They are told (in error) that they will lose the district their e-Rate funding by having student work online or even have students working online … COPA laws will be broken, … in some schools and districts its not about making teachers integrate technology, its making administration, politicians and others see it as having value and creating an environment where it is at least OK and at best encouraged and supported. I never thought I would write such a comment, but believe me it is very ugly in places … I support 6 school districts, about 100,000 students and 8-10,000 teachers … some districts and some schools are very open and supportive of tech integration, others are extremely scared of all the things that they’ve heard of, more so than I would have thought. Good news is we are starting to make real progress … much too slowly, but progress. Yes, tech integration should not be an option, but there are still many places where it is not an option really. That’s the thinking we still need to overcome.

The problems that turn up in the digital environment are not unique to it but rather “extensions of social interactions or media consumption problems that cut across environments” and are better understood in the context of a child’s life as a whole. He points to “several strands of research” that show support for this counter hypothesis and poses this question for further investigation: “Should we define problems as being unique to a technology, like cyber-bullying or cyber-stalking?”

most ISE is not evidence-based and “not based on established effectiveness principles

Even when we talk about “digital citizenship,” we talk more about behavior or “Netiquette” than agency, which is essential to the participation of any citizen in participatory democracy.