After reading this collection, I have so many thoughts that I hardly know where to begin. Any personal interpretation aside, though, I think that anyone involved in K-12 educational administration should read this. It includes a very thorough compilation of legal cases related to student use of both school-owned and student-owned electronic devices (primarily cell phones, but the information is broadly applicable to other devices, as well as to social media and the web in general) both on and off campus.

So now for the personal interpretations, in no particular order:

• There are a lot of complex legal issues to consider, and many cases with contradictory findings.
• I worry that upon reading this leadership will run shrieking from the room and not even want to use electronic devices for instructionally valid purposes. (My experience, as well as that of others, is that when students are given instructionally relevant activities to do, improper use drops dramatically.)
• It’s a shame that this amount of exhaustive work on mobile devices and social media went into examining improper uses of electronic media.
• Little mention was made of constructive uses of technology, beyond to point out that now that schools have used electronic devices for productive uses, they will find it harder to restrict their use. Unfortunate comment.
• This is very indicative of the focus of most administrations on legal issues. If folks spent as much time on addressing real learning needs as they do on legal compliance and covering their collective asses, students would benefit.
• This report applies as much to broader student uses of the web and social media. There are some fascinating cases related to cyber-bullying and personal student web sites devoted to often juvenile (they are kids after all) student critiques of schools and school personnel. Personally, I worry a lot about restricting student speech (which is addressed in this report). For each of these cases, we should look a non-digital parallel example and think about how we would react to that. There is then the issue of publicness to consider — drawing an inflammatory picture is not the same as then photocopying that picture and publicly distributing it (or putting it on the Internet).
• Simply saying in a policy document that free speech and the Constitution will be respected is not enough if the actual polices are not consistent.
• There is a huge need for educating students about the publicness of the Internet (and mobile communications that can be forwarded, publicly posted, etc. in a single click), related legalities, and responsible and civil behavior. This is a 21st century skill!!
• I would love to use this document with a class of middle school students to have them engage in a discussion of the issues and then draft their own rules and acceptable use policies. Anyone game for that?

Please weigh in with your own comments on these issues and this report.

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Think about your own AUP. How does it address things like student publishing on wikis and blogs? Log-ins? Teacher moderation? Instruction on Internet safety and responsible use?

Many AUPs don’t deal with these issues. (If you have or know one that does, PLEASE post a link here. We are looking for good examples.)

Take a minute to read the draft here and add your comments. It’s a thought-provoking exercise. (Plus it’s a great use of CommentPress!)

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I understand that filtering is mandated by law. At one extreme, most people can probably agree that blocking access to pornographic sites is a good idea. At the other extreme, we can (hopefully) all agree that blocking access to all Internet is a bad idea.

In between there are a lot of gray areas. Here are some questions that I think are worth some thought and discussion:

– Who should make the decisions about what is blocked? The federal government, the state, districts, schools, or individual parents?
– Are there any filtering systems that kids can’t get around?
– Should general tools (blogging sites, wikis, video sharing sites, nings, etc.) be blocked across the board, even though they may host some sites that are potentially objectionable?
– If we start blocking tools like this, doesn’t that logically lead to blocking most or all Internet sites? (How about paper and pencils? These too are tools that can be used to create objectionable content.)
– Can technology be used more intelligently to filter?
– What treasures are we depriving students of by blocking sites that don’t even have objectionable content? (Is this a technological challenge or a human decision?)
– Where are the respective borders of responsibility and censorship?
– What message are we sending students with our filtering policies?

I’m really trying to see both sides of this issue, but I guess my bias is showing. Please comment on this post. I’m especially interesting is heaving from anyone who could explain any possible rationale for blocking things like Blogger statewide. (Of course, if you live in one of those states, I guess you won’t be able to post a comment anyway. Sigh…)

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