I’m easing back into the blog after a restful Thanksgiving and an unfortunate start to my week. Two recent postings by others seemed appropriate to pass along as I get back into the swing. The first, from Cindy, is a request that I’d like to help her with, as I feel somewhat proud and responsible for her recent large swigs from the blogging Kool-Aid punch bowl. She’s looking to develop some traffic for her preservice teachers who are blogging at CSU. You can find their blogs in the sidebar to her’s, where you’ll find more and more interesting ruminations.
The second, and more controversial of the two, comes from Jeff Utecht, via a head’s up from Jenny. An interesting question here:
What is the difference between us telling a student to use a fake
name on their blog or on the web and a 13 year old pretending to be 18
on myspace?
We teach them to be safe on the web, to hide their identity to
basically ‘lie’ about who they are. But, when they do it on myspace we
say how horrible that is that they pretend to be someone else. We then
go so far as professionals to put our Biases and Disclosure notices to show how honest we are.Now pretend you’re 13….is this confusing?
I’ve commented, and you might consider it, too. I think there’s an interesting tension, in both the question and the responses, between the two ideas of anonymity and safety, as if the second requires the first. I think that’s bogus, and that you can share some of who you are and still remain safe online, despite other smart folks who happen to disagree. There’s a big ol’ messy space between being completely anonymous and giving out your home address and phone number. Total anonymity, I believe, and have noticed over time, leads to irresponsibility in too many cases.
Thanks for the pointer. It is a very thought provoking albeit brief blog post (we need more of those!)
I had a situation today where I had to address some ‘unsafe’ behaviour from some of my middle years kids. In my position as technology teacher/leader in my building I sometimes do a search for general information in myspace.com, picso.com, etc. I want to know what my kiddos are up to in cyberspace. I found some accounts that give out full names, school name, age, and neighbourhood information. I spent the day today going over ‘internet safety’ with all of my 5-8 classes.
One question came up today, “Is it ok if we use fake information?” I said it would be safer but that their parents need to be aware that they have these accounts and to talk it over with them. So…..I see your point. Student safety is foremost my biggest concern but where do we draw the line? Hmmmmm…..sure makes me think!
I have come across this “lying” business recently in two different situations. The first is this interesting dilemma you have posed. I believe that students can be open to discussion about ethics on the web. Every day we are confronted with different moments when we decide it is okay to “lie” about something: from avoiding the “does this make me look fat” discussion to concealing one’s identity from on-line predators. In order to commit to the idea that I am teaching future citizens, future politicians, future leaders of corporations, future jurists, etc., I also need to commit to the idea that students can handle discussion of the gray areas of ethical considerations. Interestingly, my students are writing personal narratives, and we have been having discussions regarding “embellishing” details in a personal narrative. My students invariably find this to be a form of “lying” and have come to the conclusion that all memoirists lie. After James Frey, who can blame them? It is interesting to note that in different genres (on-line profiles, the personal narrative) truth is not a definitive place, but rather subjective to the situation. Tricky, very tricky.