I agree with Alan November that it is important for students to develop Global empathy - the ability to understand and respect different points of view. Also, students need to be sensitive to the needs of people from other countries. According to November, kids also need to learn the social and ethical responsibility of working on the web. I agree with this. Especially at the upper elementary grade levels and beyond, students learn about internet safety and the dangers of inappropriate online behavior prior to lessons. Our school's technology program has blocks that prevent students from getting into "bad" sites most of the time. Students should also be taught about the permanence of information that is posted online. We do stress this to students at our school district. I also agree with November and I would teach my students that they need to develop the skills to find, develop and be critical of information they find online.
Technology makes it easy for students to learn about the current social and political conditions of other nations online via email and web conferencing. One thing I would work on in the next school year to achieve this, would be to encourage students to "tear apart information" they find on the web. I would teach them to seek out lots of information from many sources to compare and contrast what various people have posted.
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Social and ethical responsibility includes Internet safety, but I'd also like to see it include respect for intellectual property rights. When can students use the work of others? When do they need to give credit for what they use? We talk about plagiarism in schools, but I don't think it really connects with students. As students do more mashups, taking data and other resources from multiple sources and turning it into something new, the meaning of copyright and intellectual property becomes an issue (and one that is in flux in today's information world).
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. The level of global awareness of our young students is great. I hope that continued exposure and understanding of differences will creat empathy in their young minds.
ReplyDeleteI think your goal for your students next year will take them far. It will be eye opening for them to see the variety of inforamtion/sources and the differences on a given topic. My son just finished his science fair project and did a majority of his research online. As a 7th grader, he has been taught to seek valid sites for research, which will only be to his benefit.