Here is a first cut of some questions which might be useful. Add your
own, mash these, as you wish.
The idea is not to find fault with existing systems but to understand
risk from a student centred perspective
and including wider social risks and opportunities to help see the
implications of institutional
or systemic risk management choices. Feel free to wrangle these into
themes on the wiki or in blogs etc.
I think creating some useful ways forward or examples aroung these
kinds of questions might be constructive.
Physics of safety.
Institutional risk and student development? What role does risk play
in learning?
If there are 'no risk' approaches to working with technology in
schools, where does that risk then happen?
Students are active in myspace, facebook, youtube, online games
forums, sites for sharing artwork and self expression.
These tools are a part of the fabric of young lives. If it is too
challenging for students to learn the impact of choices in
online media in schools, where does it happen? Where could it happen?
What does it look like?
Supporting systems
Do the current legal and insurance models serve Australian society well?
What kinds of models as used elsewhere, do they result in different
opportunities/risks.
eg Which policies on websites send children underground rather than
providing means for supported participation
Do blame based insurance models work at counterpoint to systems where
shared responsibility is required.
What are the methods and processes for review of these frameworks for
a 21 century networked community.
Participative safety - safety is something I make.
If safety is seen only as a fence around a cohort of students, what
opportunities are lost to ensure safety as a function of constructive
participation? Bullying is a concern in schoolyards. What happens if
the schoolyard points of reference for power are the loudest
exemplars on the internet, perhaps reinforced by media which promotes
conflict, win/lose, models for managing communities.
Big brother house, biggest loser, weakest link, largely gladiatorial
approaches to conflict resolution.
If these models are the context which students see, where can win/win
collaboration and inclusive solutions be formed.
Visible power.
Where do students find exemplars of best practice collaboration,
participation and power online?
If the kinds of 'voice' made possible by using technologies visibly
online to generate instances of constructive use of power, leadership,
participation, online are not available in school, where do children
find the norms for collaboration which might fit in a workplace or
university?
Developing safe adults
If a student should have the skills to participate in a workplace
using only 'appropriate use guidelines' by the end of school, where
does that
skill and maturity develop. How could it be staged. Who could
contribute to decisions about when the student is ready for new
challenges?
Safety for elderly people is a societal risk. How do practices in
participation which respect the needs for safety of others develop in
contexts where students learn safety as a function of same age
participation with the bad people all being 'other'.
Success and diversity.
Students use the internet primarily to connect with people they know.
Adults often connect around ideas hobbies, interests or projects which
they are following, regardless of the location of participants.
Bikeriding, technology, dogbreeding, music, art.
Are there ways for students to find their own path for work or special
interest in online communities.
Are there mentors who can support the development of these skills?
How does/could this kind of special interest community work offer
support for students learning at school.
What kinds of negotiations should happen and what kind of online
systems are well designed for children to participate in these kinds
of communities? What kinds of mentoring communities engage in skill
based criteria for participation?
Perhaps this kind of online diversification provide useful
opportunities for different kinds of community and work success and
ways forward.
Artichoke's blog has a post on teen suicide which includes some
relevant links and many more questions.
http://artichoke.typepad.com/artichoke/2008/04/education-signi.html
Janet
Matthieu Ricard habits of happiness
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/191
Mind training matters.
Stuart B Hill's values for social ecology have been useful
http://www.shintaido-australia.org/shill/index.html#nextsteps
And a challenge.
I found Clifford Stoll difficult to watch and felt impatient, but went
back the next day to listen again.
Imagine Stoll as a student. A student who wants to be a scientist. We
want to encourage participation in science.
What does this mean in terms of encouraging inquisitive journeys.
http://www.ted.com/speakers/view/id/213
He is brilliant, quirky and passionate about learning and looks like a
challenge for a teaching and learning context.
And yet he is contributing, and cares deeply about the importance of
other people caring about that kind of contribution.
What does this mean? Imagine Stoll as a student. Do we have skills for
being inclusive of diversity in the ways we structure learning.
What is efficient/rich, what is useful/interesting, how can parents
and students choose what feels valuable.
How can teachers get support for trying things which have no precedent.
How can students get support for trying things which have no precedent.
What kinds of systems help our society to face its fears in ways which
make us more connected and whole.
When things break do we have methods for healing individually and collectively.
Teachers and schools are under a lot of pressure because we have
socially so much disparity and unprocessed mess.
It is not fair to pack all of this challenge into schools for
industrial processing.
It is equally not useful to exclude who we are from our education system.
So there needs to be some flow and shared responsibility.
We need the ability to develop skills in constructively negotiating
for a diverse and aspirationally motivated Australia.
The Beyond Beliefs Islam and non Islam Australia conversations were powerful.
I see these kinds of cross connections and conversations being a
larger part of our social processing.
They help us to do the work required to deal constructively with diversity?
There are other ways too? Fun and festivals. Music and language.
We probably cannot do some of these things using the industrial
processing techniques which have become familiar in education.
Class sizes and timetables, standard tests come with some underlying
assumptions about value, goals and common directions which might need
review. Perhaps we need to review resourcing for schools and to do
this as a social responsibility(as per Clifford Stoll) as much as a
funding question for a sector of governance.
We could do with constructive Media participation which finds ways to
make commercial value through supporting inclusive and constructive
negotiation of contention.
Perhaps each individual in society could be seen as a contributor who
is on a learning journey facing fears and finding ways to collaborate
constructively. Doing the mind training. The mix of opportunities,
negotiations and also fences which relate to that person's
contributions
need to be about making safety through the kinds of participation
which is required and through encouraging them to take new steps.
Fences used need to relate to the point on the path of the person on
that journey, whether that is because they are very young or because
there is a problem which needs to be handled in a controlled space.
These are just my thoughts.
Passing the baton back to the gang there are many folks on list who
are more experienced
in the specifics of these issues in a school context.
What does your ideal outcome look like?
Which pieces of puzzle need to be in place to make first steps in
those directions?
Janet
Penpals are an example.
Perhaps blogs are a similar model to penpals.
Is transparency of the correspondence something which contributes to security
by enabling the parents to see what is being shared and to be part of
the dialogue/negotiation.
Yes I am hoping the ideas get munged refined and added to by other folks.
There must be so many people with hands on experience who could make
the questions more specific or better informed.
Janet
Sorry Leigh
The link hangs for me. fwiw I am not in any position as a non-educator
participant in an open community to critque who is credible in a
discussion about safety in schools.
I felt I was in a position to try and make an opportunity for those
folks who might have something to bring to the topic. I have tried to
structure the opportunity to keep the focus on what might be and to
avoid ligntning strikes through people who are having a go from any
perspective. ie I am trying to make an opportunity about sharing
responsibility not finding villians.
I think there is room for the wider community to have an impact by
using that kind of conversation wherever they are.
One day is a small target so I am trying to find ways to get the
conversation sitting on a broader base and with a wider contribution
than the kind of scope which might fit in a one day face to face. Any
groundwork done online in weeks prior could be very useful.
If a framework which supports open practice in schools is the goal,
what are your ideal approaches to safety and learning
What first steps feel useful to you.
Janet
janet wrote:The idea is not to find fault with existing systems but to understand risk from a student centred perspective and including wider social risks and opportunities to help see the
implications of institutional or systemic risk management choicesrisk from a student centred perspective?
I think that's the wrong approach - even if you frame risk as a positive (which is true) but still if the overall framework is "risk" then you'll get the wrong answers
on the other hand, if the framework is learning (for example) then some risk taking emerges from that discussion as essential
when students take risks they are normally thinking about something else eg. curious, looking for adventure etc. - possibly even those who are "at risk", which again arises from other social factors
if you make risk the focus then you'll end up with a conservative agenda - this risk is justified / is not justified for some wider reason, what wider reason?
Just as if teachers talk about "behaviour management" without factoring in wider issues (such as learning) they'll get the wrong answers too
you could call this the tyranny of the subgoals
- Bill
--
Bill Kerr
http://billkerr2.blogspot.com/
is anyone going to ask the kids? or the older kids who will soon be in a position to make these choices for themselves? or is this meeting going to involve only people within the system?
anyway - that then stimulated me to jump in here and ask "in adelaide, how will you make sure that you ask the right questions or at the very least work out who needs to be part of the conversation?" (ie the "done to" group)
not really - the projects i mentioned were sincere and seemed to fulfil the requirements - it was the requirements that needed redefinition in my opinion. or at least they needed to guide the projects differently.
i think we all do that to some extent - come from our own headspace and then get bewildered when the "done-to" don't seem to respond as we'd hoped, in spite of all the data we collected that told us how on track we were.
am currently reading some stuff on assessment validity in VET - how i wish the rudd govt would hold some kind of open pow-wow to talk about the whole VET system in general... there must be so many stories out there in VET land, waiting to be told
r
interesting, graham, so you've basically gone the sock puppet route with kids
another experiment would be to only allow direct true, honest, and transparent self-expressions - otherwise take it home / do it outside of school - ideals about honesty, etc. often appear in school mission statements - but perhaps school and education department mission statements should be modified to reflect actual practice
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ask parents and children what digital identity they want their child to have - and go with it
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yes, exactly, provide info about digital identity options with various pros and cons, with examples, etc.
sounds like a kid these days probably needs to maintain at least:
- actual identity
- nickname/avatatar/sock puppets
our uni looks like it might drop providing student email services - instead students would simply advise the uni of their email address for official correspondence
similarly, schools needn't necessarily even be in the business of deciding policy about this stuff - instead parents and students could be required to provide their own digital identity(ies) for students to use in school learning projects
i tried this approach last semester with uni students - about 2/3 decided to blog with actual identities and about 1/3 with hidden identities. interestingly i noticed that as semester wore on, more and more of them 'came out', revealed who they were, and some set up new blogs with their actual identity as they become more confident in expressing who they were
just a thought
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i had no problems - admittedly this was with 80 adults
the students could set up their blog anywhere, using any name - they submitted their feeds which were then aggregated - i kept an eye on postings and only found 1 or 2 postings out of many hundred that i considered inappropriate or potentially unsafe (e.g., revealing someone else's identity and some private information about the person) which were dealt with quickly and amicably
my sense is that education depts need to DROP policy not create policy around this - the important stuff is getting on with learning/experiencing - the administrators' job is to REMOVE barriers
when something inappropriate happens, it is not the end of the world - it is a learning opportunity. how else are students and parents to learn if mistakes can't be made? are we going to leave students to learn about negotiating real online issues by themselves in unsupported environments - or are we going to provide supported real-world encounters in which they can make mistakes (which are easily fixed!)? education policy must allow for, and encourage mistakes to be made, otherwise they may as well just read the encyclopedia brittanica.
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i've got no problem with people using multiple and fictitious identities - when there's an authentic purpose. but if the fundamental reason is to avoid political scandal, then it's time for online educators to start the revolution.
from what i can smell from here, i suspect that the current conservativism in online education is undermining the quality of education for our future workforce
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> much of what i've suggested can be summed up as my view that the R+ is greater than the R- for open online education with kids - R+ is the risk of positive outcome and R- is the risk of negative outcome - more info on such a conceptualisation of risk here -
>
> The concept of risk: Perceptions of the likelihood of loss (R-) or gain (R+)
>
> ...and then the day came when
> the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful
> than the risk it took to blossom.
> - Anais Nin
> http://wilderdom.com/risk/RiskConcept.html
Some nice thoughts in that one thanks James
The risk of risk aversion feels recursive.