I recently had the opportunity to attend a presentation by Dr. Scott Garrigan related to open content/open source/open just about everything. Dr. Garrigan is someone who I would consider a friend and his enlightening words inspire me. He inspires me to look foward and to look outside of our comfort zone. Sure, I've seen/heard the Alan Novembers and the David Warlicks of the world but Scott is close to home. I guess it's also nice to hear someone who also shares similar views...but differ somewhat. In the presentation he brought up Google Images and YouTube as a source of accessible content...I reminded him that these two tools (and I see them as tools...believe me) are commonly blocked in the K12 arena. This began a discussion of how in the "real world" we aren't blocking these tools. I agree...we should be allowed to utilize tools that are in the "real world" but the reality of it is that we are prohibited by federal law to allow access to inappropriate material/content for k12 students. I'm reminded of the time that a teacher asked me to find an image of a giraffe. I quickly opened Google images (before deemed inappropriate), typed in giraffe, and to our shock...a picture of a naked person on top of a giraffe. Now imagine me having 2nd graders going to Google Images and finding that. If a parent were to know that...that teacher would be in some serious trouble. The same goes for YouTube. There is VERY inappropriate material in there...not all of it but some...enough to cause me pain and agony if parents were to question it. That why these things are blocked. I will tell you that as a curriculum person, I argue all the time with our technology departments about the availability of tools that are legit...I guess that's how it's going to be for the time being.
So this brings me back to Dr. Garrigan...even though we disagreed with that particular point, I am a VERY strong proponent of K12 students accessing and taking advantage of what's out there. It's funny...here in the U.S. we have become a nation of downloaders...students downloading music, research papers, other peoples' ideas, graphics, etc. while the rest of the world have become uploaders. The Web 2.0 world is one of sharing and collaboration yet we don't take advantage of it...so I challenge teachers to have their students creat and collaborate and throw it out there for the world to see and provide feedback. Blog, podcast, write, speak, share, chart, explore, peer edit/review, social network, wiki, wikibooks, journal...share and give feedback...these are skills.
Steve