Teachers on MySpace, Nice or Naughty?

Do as we say, and not as we do. Many educators discuss Internet safety with students. However, have you ever checked out My Space for teacher sites? There are a lot out there. This isn't a surprise since many teachers are under 30. What is a surprise is the content on the sites... typical of myspace, but not typical classroom discussion topics.

Kids are savvy, and know how to find the online counterpart to the in-classroom teacher -- especially since most are using real names, disclosing name of the school where they teach, and include photos.

Our local paper, the Columbus Dispatch, is running a series called the ABC's of Betrayal about the misconduct of our educators. Today's story captured the top spot in the paper, and thereby captured my attention -- Teachers' saucy Web profiles risk jobs.

The Ohio Education Association is strongly encouraging teachers to not use social networking sites, including MySpace.com all the way through Match.com. True, educators are role models. But should they really be prohibited from using social networking sites all together? Or do they just need to adapt online behaviors to reflect the basic Internet safety that they teach kids?

Dayton Staff Day

I'll be presenting tomorrow (Friday) at Dayton's Staff Development Day on web 2.0 and the virtual library. I'm very excited to have been invited by the staff there to present, and look forward to meeting everyone and sharing ideas.

I'm posting the presentation a day early.

| View | Upload your own

See you all in Dayton tomorrow!

iTunes has Suess

I'm a little late in the game realizing that iTunes is offering the Dr Suess collection. The entries have been added throughout the year and are recently recorded by a series of recognizable narrators including John Lithgow, Ted Danson, Jason Alexander, David Hyde Pierce and Walter Matthau. All titles appear to be $2.95.

At least pop over and preview a few, they are very fun. Oh how I wish libraries could break down the Apple digital rights barrier to partner with iTunes. How do we make this happen?

A New Digital Divide

I was chatting with my sister the other day. She is a 4th grade teacher in an relatively affluent community just north of C-bus. I'm sure 90% plus have home computers.

Self: what are your kids fave inet sites?
Sis: (starts blabbering about a bunch of math education sites...)
Self: stop, really these are the favorites?
Sis: yeah, a lot of the kids don't know where to go online so they ask for suggestions. after i tell them bout a site they use it all the time.
Self: this cannot be true of all the kids, don't you have my spacers?
Sis: they are too young for that, but i do have some kids addicted to youtube... that cannot be good for them.

In a nutshell, she described two types of kids -- the "youtubers" and the kids that don't know where to go online. I wonder if parents have created a new digital divide not based on economics, but purely on exposure to the Internet. Should 4th graders be youtubing?