The Internet and Our Minds
There has been some interesting discussion on some blogs about blocking Internet content and tools from students and teachers in our schools. One side believes that filtering content (including weblogs) is good because people need to be protected from inappropriate content. The other side tends to believe over-protection is not good because students and teachers never learn the skills needed to effectively deal with inappropriate content when it is encountered. There are also additional points made on the topic of trust - do we trust students? And do we trust teachers?
I definitely fall on the side of less filtering. If we don’t teach people how to evaluate content, they’re never going to be able to execute this important skill, whether student or teacher. In order for them to acquire the skill we need to make the classroom environment as close to the real world environment as possible, without being reckless. We also need to trust both teachers and students to do the right thing. It is simply wrong for us to assume they will do the wrong thing.
I also believe there is a larger question that helps support the openness of Internet content and tools. What benefits does the Internet and its tools provide students and teachers and what are the potential results of removing the use of these tools from the environment? Steven Johnson provides some ideas in his book, Everything Bad is Good for You. His thesis for the book is that things like television, movies and video games have actually developed a level of complexity to the point that they can challenge us cognitively. In the first part of the book he also discusses the Internet and offers three ways in which the rise of the Internet has challenged our minds.
- It is a participatory medium. People are creating content and therefore knowledge. They are not passive consumers. They participate with tools such as email, instant messaging, and weblogs. (Ironically, all tools that many district prohibit teachers and students to use.)
- Full participation in the Internet forces us to learn how to use these new tools. You can include those same tools as well as others such as voice over IP, photo sharing tools, social bookmarking, and any of the new tools coming out practically daily.
- The Internet allows us to create new and strengthen old social networks. The Internet hasn’t eroded communication as some predicted. It has instead enhanced dialogue among people and is often used to enhance already established face-to-face communication.
To block the tools that our schools are blocking denies students and teachers the benefits of the medium. Instead of risk management, we are obsessed with risk elimination and fear - resulting in the total elimination of the tools. The vision in our shools is stuck ten years in the past --- the Internet is a library in which we pull information, rarely, if ever, contributing information. That is viewed as the work of others outside the school. To block sites and tools that encourage the push of information is to not only miss the dominant characteristic of the Internet, but to deny students and teachers a richer learning experience.
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