Chapter 7

While reading this chapter covering online safety and security I thought some on my own parenting style. I am very careful with what my daughter experiences online. We are quite strict with her. Her current level of online activity is not academic so I have no problem limiting her to very few things. With the discussion about security within the schools I am reminded of the debate about constitutional rights vs. safety and security of our country. We as a nation are finding a balance between our rights and the rights of our military and law enforcement. This is the same with schools and students. We all want our students to be safe and yet also want them to have access to all the fabulous tools available online. Finding that balance is what schools are doing. My school has a separate search engine we have access too, and I have found that it is nice to have. The results I get from searching things like matrix come up with the math version instead of images of Keanu Reeves. We also have a firewall, but it isn't perfect. Some sites are blocked because they have the word game in them, but yet they are educational.

I really enjoyed the charts and discussion on what is stealing. I also realize that using someone elses work without attribution is rampant among my students. Every time I give an assignment that calls for research I have students who copy and paste the information from websites and expect that to count for their own work. Sadly, this happens even after I tell them over and over again that I will check their sources.