I took my lunch to go today. I stopped at a local park, turned on WMAY, and listened to Pamela Furr. Not a huge fan of the Furrburger, but I’ll listen from time to time. A topic that I caught the tail end of today was MySpace. Myspace..myspace..mycrap… I say this as I check my account religiously.
A caller had mentioned that Riverton has a parent supported group that scours Riverton students’ profiles for inappropriate material. Supposedly, those that are involved in extracuricular activities have to sign an ethics contract (along with their parents) that any material posted online through a blog, MySpace, or message forum deemed slanderous or inappropriate will get them suspended from that activity or activities.
The rebellious high schooler that I was once was would kick me in the pants if I posted this years ago. I actually support this type of action from parents. Too many times GTG and I have browsed through student profiles from the high school she teaches at and been shocked by the photos or generosity of information given out to the viewing public.
Hate to say it, but parents check up on your kids.
Years ago the internet was considered small and private. I mean like 10 years ago. There were not the tools that we have now (ex. Google) to search such in depth. And once something is posted on the Internet it does not go away. Almost all search engines cache pages that they index and there is a tool called the Way-Back machine that archives sites like this one.
Schools block MySpace access; kids fight back
So the schools block MySpace… this is really stop students from getting access to it during the day. I would so be one of the students hacking a way to the mother of the Internet. How do you do it? Well there are more than a dozen ways to do it depending on the software or hardware blocking the site. Anonymizer (a web proxy), remote access to a computer at home, using a mirror site…
And just when they [schools, parents, teachers, administrators, system admins] think they have it figured out; it won’t matter. With so much media attention, MySpace is just a fad. There are already a million other alternatives to the holy grail of social networking. And the rule of marketing is that kids will go where the cool kids go.
What should schools do? Obviously block as much as possible, but don’t exhaust your resources. The internet is meant for information. Once you start filtering and blocking you defeat the purpose as the Internet as a tool.
Put in place a code of ethics that puts the student responsible for their actions. In the same way I could be fired for saying something slanderous about the people I work, do the same for students. Once information is out there, it is public knowledge.
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