Recent incidents of students disciplined after posting disparaging remarks about teachers and principals on the Internet illustrate the need to educate young people about privacy issues and what's appropriate online, education stakeholders said yesterday.
The issue was thrust back into the spotlight after at least five Grade 8 students in Toronto were banned from attending a year-end school trip to Montreal as punishment for messages posted on the social-networking website Facebook.
"We have to have the conversation about what's private, what's public, what are the protocols, what are the rules, because I think it's very unclear," said Education Minister Kathleen Wynne.
The latest disciplinary action was taken after offensive messages about a teacher at Willowbrook Public School in Thornhill, north of Toronto, were posted online............
The action follows two other recent high-profile incidents in the province.Part of the problem may lie with the expectations students have of the Internet.
"Kids don't think of those places as public places," said Annie Kidder of the group People for Education.
In a recent Ipsos-Reid poll conducted for Microsoft Canada, 70 per cent of respondents aged 10 to 14 said they believe the information they put online is private.
This is a part of an article in our paper today and caught my eye because Facebook was a subject of conversation over dinner last night.
From what Stephen tells me there isn't much you won't see or read there. He figures there are going to be some very embarrassed people a few years down the road. It appears that even your best friend will post a photo of you that would fry the hair off a mother's head.
As the access to information has exploded, brains seem to have shrunk. Is this the best we can do?
Somebody needs to point these young minds to new sites so they can perhaps learn the name of the leader of the opposition.
http://crazytrace.blogspot.com/2007/05/inertia-abd-despair.html
3 comments:
Yes true...I read that same article too.
*shaking head*
There's a whole new set of rules of polite behaviour. Trouble is no one seems to have set them out and certainly no one has bothered to broadcast them to the young.
The World Wide Web as a place where anything goes is ok in theory if the users are all respectful of the beliefs and feelings of others. I like the freedom, but don't know whether it is worth the price.
Noticed today that the Ontario govt. has now blocked Facebook on employees work computers, adding it to the list of porn sites and youtube.
Guess they will have to work at work and surf from home.
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