Post: Bad anti-technology piece of legislationPosted by Raven on 5/16/06
According to techLearning magazine, a magazine on technology
integration in education, “Legislation has been introduced
in Congress that would prohibit anyone under 18 from using
school or library computers to access Web sites that create
public "Web pages or profiles" and also offer a discussion
board, chat room, or e-mail service.”
While I understand the idea behind protecting students from
internet preditors, this legislation will also prevent good
learning from occurring. I currently use an online
discussion board in my classroom to extend class discussion
on literature and topics, as well as for authentic writing
opportunities. Under this new legislation, I would no longer
be able to use such a great tool.
Online discussion boards not only provide a safe place for
students to get help on assignments, but it also allows
students who aren’t normally heard in the classroom to be
heard equally. I have researched this topic greatly as I
plan to complete my dissertation on this topic. I truly feel
that using these boards in my class has given my students a
new confidence in their ideas and boosted their
understanding of what we read. (See more of my research
here: http://portfolio.oaksclass.com/gen_cecs/bb_ppr.doc)
More and more schools are using blogs and discussion boards
to further student reading comprehension and writing skills.
If we block these tools because some students misuse them
when they are unsupervised, then we ruin a potentially
helpful tool in education. Maybe what we need instead is
teachers trained in how to supervise teachers on the computer.
Please encourage your state and city representatives to vote
against this piece of legislation.
Raven Oak
7th grade ELA teacher
http://www.oaksclass.com
www.oaksclass.com
Posts on this thread, including this one
Bad anti-technology piece of legislation, 5/16/06, by Raven.
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