Doug Achterman wrote:
> In a lunch conversation with Joyce Valenza yesterday, we both expressed
> our distress over the number of people who mentioned that their
> preference for the
> listserv was based on the fact that blogs were blocked in their
> district. Others mentioned that any websites that included a wiki were
> also blocked.
I'm not sure that I completely agree with blocking ALL blogs or wiki
sites, but I can certainly understand the thinking behind such decisions.
>
> It seems to me that this is a major battle that our profession MUST
> engage in--
> and win. Social software applications such as blogs and wikis, not to
> mention
> interactive multi-media platforms like SecondLife, are fast becoming
> critical
> tools in 21st century teaching and learning.
How so? Most of us teach in schools that reference "education" in our
mission statements. How do these tools specifically relate to education?
Are ALL of these blogs and wikis really useful for education, or are
they just there?
> Yes, there are real
> safety issues
> with social software, just as there are safety issues with lab equipment,
> automobiles, and even bicycles. But in each case, the advantages of
> their use
> far outweigh the risks.
So what are the advantages that outweigh the disadvantages and risks?
> So what do we do? We teach safe and
> responsible use. If we throw up our hands and do not engage in these
> technologies because some
> uninformed techie tells us we can’t, we may as well give up any claims
> to being
> instructional leaders. As information specialists, we need to not only
> embrace
> such technologies; we need to make it clear to the educational
> community that
> banning their use concedes that we are willing to deny teachers and
> students
> their greatest educational opportunities.
We also need to be careful that we don't promote something that turns
out to be less than helpful technology. Some of you are old enough to
remember laser disks. Those a bit older will remember beta/vhs battles.
I'm old enough to remember four-track/eight-track tape players.
Both four-track and eight-track tape players disappeared after only a
couple of years because they were replaced almost immediately by
cassette tapes. Beta, even though it was technically superior to vhs,
lost out because of some poor marketing decisions, and vhs is being
replaced by dvd. Laser disks never really caught on, and were replaced
by dvd.
Librarians, as a group, tend to be early users of new technologies, and
sometimes we push for something that turns out to not be able to deliver
what was promised. When that happens our credibility is reduced.
>
>
> I am not implying that those who posted about blogs vs. listservs are
> throwing
> up their hands in response to district filtering. Their posts merely
> prompted
> my thought that we need a concerted effort to fight this battle. How
> about a
> toolkit of resources, presentations, etc. that library media
> specialists can
> download to use in their own districts? Come to think of it, maybe we
> could
> start brainstorming this on a blog. Hey, Joyce, maybe you’d like to
> host this?
To be honest, I'm not a fan of blogs, because they are more difficult to
use than a listserv. As someone else pointed out, I suspect that blogs
will go the way of newsgroups (anyone remember those?). A wiki might
actually serve a limited purpose (I'm thinking about students writing
their own reviews of books), but someone is going to have to review
every single post before it goes up. Do you have the time to do that? I
don't.
Lest someone think that is censorship, just talk to the school
newspaper, yearbook, or television news sponsor, and ask them how much
they review before it is published. Why is it reviewed? Liability. In
our lawsuit-happy society, we have to make sure that nothing is
published that can't be defended in court. The vast majority of our
students will not abuse our trust, but there will be a few who will.
Would YOU want to have even a small amount of cyberbullying on something
you were in charge of? Of course not. Cyberbullies, like all bullies,
know that they are doing wrong - they just choose to ignore that
inconvenient fact.
I'm not opposed to new technologies, but we need to be sure that the new
idea is actually an improvement over what we already have.
--
David Lininger, kb0zke,
MS/HS librarian
Hickory County R-1 Schools
Urbana, MO 65767
417-993-4226
tss003 at tnp dot more dot net
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