Activity #9 Fitness Assessment

Scenario 2: Blocking all Access
After hearing a presentation at a conference, your principal Mr. Smith has banned all Web 2.0 tools for students and teachers including Facebook, Skype, YouTube, wikis, blogs, and Flickr. A number of teachers and many students are upset with this decision but Mr. Smith cites legal reasons for blocking the sites.

Task:
1.  Discuss the possible ethical issues involved.
2.  Determine if the safety or well-being of anyone is in jeopardy.
3.  What advice, strategy, or policy would you recommend to individuals or schools based on this scenario?
4.  Share any real-life incidents or personal connections related to the scenario.

Response:
1 and 2- I think the administrator in this scenario is trying hard to avoid ethical and safety issues. By banning the use of these platforms, he is avoiding the issues, but at the same time, denying the teachers and students options for learning and sharing that, in my opinion, students today will need. I think the safety issue is probably that students be exposed to inappropriate content or comments of a similar nature.
3- Advice I would offer includes education on how the banned tools can add to today's classroom and improve motivation and relevance for students. This administrator needs to look at some good examples of teachers who have successfully and safely used the platforms. I think some clear guidelines/policy could be arrived at with communication about the potential problems Mr. Smith wants to avoid. And possibly help from a teacher with experience/success. Many teachers who blog or use web tools are willing to share.
4- I do like to use You-Tube clips of songs with my students in class, but don't like the adds that sometimes pop up. So I can appreciate concern there. 

Scenario 5: Email Complication
Mr. Lopez, a social studies teacher, has been using the same PowerPoint to introduce content on the electoral-college for many years now. He recently saw a Prezi his high school-age daughter created for a class and asked her to teach him how to create a Prezi. He was able to link images and video content instead of just text and found that his students seemed more motivated and lively in a debate about voting politics.  He decided to have his 7^th graders create Prezis in small groups outlining their main points for the election debate.  What Mr. Lopez discovered in the computer lab is that as students were creating Prezi Edu accounts and told to use their school provided email when registering, they could not activate their Prezi accounts because the school email settings only allow emails internally, and therefore cannot receive emails from outside the district. Mr. Lopez’s assignment was suddenly dead in the water.

Response:
1- The ethical issue here, lies in the school trying to keep spam or other unwanted email away from students. 
2- Spam email is pretty bad. I get it with my home account and at school also. I am often shocked at how graphic even the subject lines are on some of them. Yes, I definitely see the potential ethical and safety issues with student email accounts.
3- The reason I chose this scenario is because the initial fix to Mr. Lopez's lesson is easy. I really believe in honesty with students, and explicit modeling with students, especially when you can model hitting a road-block and then working through it. Kids need to see this in action. They need to see how to remain calm and work through a problem. Mr. Lopez could just stop the lesson, discuss the problem, brainstorm some solutions, and then circle back later with a fix. Or not and go to plan B. Either way- it's good life-lesson material.
I think the possible solution would include using a shared log-in account, so he could filter the email account. Or possibly contacting Prezi to ask for a suggested solution. I would think his district tech department would also have some ideas for how to work around the internal email. A school district tech squad has the unique niche of understanding the technology, but knowing that the safety of students is the priority.