Education Law

Liveblogging ELA - "Cyber" issues

Was just in a very concerning session on off-campus speech and cyber-speech. Actually, it scared me a good deal. Some thoughts:

1. People are scared of this "Internet thing." Really scared. Administrators in this session suggested that (a) students don't understand that there are consequences to any of their actions these days, (b) an administrator said that we should get rid of all anonymous Internet content, (3) participants continually referred to the Internet as "cyberspace" -- as in someplace other than the world they live in. Clearly, we are a long way from simply accepting the Internet's continued existence.
2. T.K. Daniel made some great points about teachers and administrators not understanding what is going on with the Internet and not understanding how it could be used positively.
3. There is general acceptance that "cyber-bullying" is different from "bullying" generally. I disagree. Folks seem to think that it is fundamentally different because students somehow can now bully with their fingertips instead of their fists. Um, haven't students always been bullying with their fingertips? What about classroom notes. What about papers taped to the back of students? ... Folks, this is not different. Yes, there are differences in form, but no difference in substance.
4. I was surprised to hear a school district attorney suggest that he would like to give more freedoms to students on this issue. His point was that in a highly regulatory environment, schools are overwhelmed. He said he spends a lot of time contacting Facebook and asking them to take down webpages. That is a waste of school resources in some ways since whatever bullying or misbehavior the site was intended to convey has necessarily already been conveyed by the time the school hears about it. I thought that was a very good point and it was refreshing to hear a board lawyer looking at this rationally instead of reactionarily. 
5. "on" campus - "off" campus ... are those the best words we can use? Those words imply a world where geography matters, i.e., something is either or here or there, but not both. With ubiquitous worldwide publishing, geography is a pretty odd way to try to continue to define the limits of school authority. We need a new term for this issue.

Full post as published by Edjurist on November 20, 2008 (boomark / email).