TECHNOLOGY MAKES TEACHERS LESS FREE?
Faced with scandals and complaints involving teachers who misuse social media, school districts across the country are imposing strict new guidelines that ban private conversations between teachers and their students on cellphones and online platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Although, funny enough, it's not texting for learning, but rather they are communicating information to parents, to keep them engaged and involved.
I did think the part about the NH school allowing cell phone use to reduce distractions and allow teachers to focus on teaching instead of enforcement was also interesting. Technology-bans were affecting their effectiveness!
The most troubling thing about this article is how 'new' they make this debate sound with respect to the internet being a place to conduct school activity. It is less a question of if schools should filter and more a question of how will they deal with the reality that filtering is an ineffective method of dealing with the complexity of the internet.
I feel like this is one more instance of expecting schools to be everything to everybody. The filtering issue is there because of the blurring lines between student's home-life and school-life. Student's experience cyberbullying should not expect that the medium in which they are harrassed is also accessible during school hours. I agree with you Chris that filtering is ineffective but the schools are stuck. They are leaving themselves wide open to a lawsuit without it.