Media Technology and Educational Technology Retreat

Dickens' Tale of Two Cities starts: "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times; it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness…" This type of dichotomy mirrors how I feel about cyberspace. It is seriously the best and the worst. It is hard to imagine how we got along before the Internet. The Internet changed Information literacy the way the industrial revolution changed domestic production. It is amazing to have unlimited knowledge just a click away. I have been involved in a weeklong retreat with fellow educators discussing the vision of technology in education, both in the classroom and in the library. Our two teams, Media Technology and Educational Technology, have the unique opportunity to help create a brand new school district and to set the bar for the use of technology in our schools for the benefit of our students. We were lucky in our retreat to hear from some of the top educators around the world and to hear about how they feel about integrating technology in the classroom. They all gave us a great deal to think about. Kevin Honeycutt joined us for a few minutes via a Skype interview and I was impressed by his message and his enthusiasm delivering that message. On his website http://www.kevinhoneycutt.org/ he asks the question, "Our kids will spend the rest of their lives in the future. Are we getting them ready?" When he talked to us, he talked about our responsibility to protect the kids as they navigate cyberspace. He stated that we don't let kids go out to recess without supervision, why would we let them on the Internet without some type of supervision. Kevin dedicates part of his website to online safety for parents, teachers, and kids. I was recently involved in a court case on this issue. That was a real wakeup call to me. Online safety IS a big issue. It is especially pertinent in a library where kids are on the web without the oversight of a parent or teacher. It is critical that we make sure kids are trained about how to be safe on the net. There are some great sites like Kevin Honeycutt's out there to help us. It is essential that we share them with our students. I have often used Netsmartz to help train the kids about online hazards. (http://www.netsmartz.org) I also shared with high school students LOCAL newspaper stories about online predators and cyber bullying instances. I am interested in knowing how other librarians deal with the issue of online safety.