Teach42

As the one who was most influential in my pursuit of podcasting…it’s good to hear your voice again!

No filters! I do think there needs to be some in the lower grades. Too easy to find interesting websites. The older kids need to learn how to navigate away from that while they research.

Deep. Isn’t it cool how your thinking is affected when you have children? I have certainly looked at things through different eyes. The good news is that my children are now “adult children who pay their own bills” and they turned out ok with restrictions. While we are parents, it is our duty to tell our kids the right thing and empower them to do what is right. They will make mistakes and then we are there to love them unconditionally. I remember someone who said, “5th graders think like 5th graders!”

Until, your baby is old enough to truly make his own decisions, you will have to restrict him to help him to guard the portals of his mind. That’s the gift of a loving parent. He doesn’t need a friend, he’ll get plenty of those. He’ll only gets one mom and one dad. He’s lucky to have you.

See? Here’s the thing. Everyone talks about the moral issues, the ethics and freedom of speech issues. All important, granted. But this is also a business issue. What are the chances a malware or virus infestation creeping in and bringing your network to a standstill if your users are cruising loc.gov (Library of Congress), as opposed to, say lyrics.com, myspace or brittany dot anything?

Other than that? Filtering is never going to stop illicit or inappropriate activity. Ever. Trying to solve moral issues with technology is like handing out umbrellas in a typhoon. The only one who wins is the one making umbrellas.

This isn’t something new. When I was six my Grandmother told my Mom: Putting up a fence isn’t going to keep him out of the street. It’s just going to teach him to climb fences….

Great podcast mate… Couldn’t agree more!! Filters are a waste of time… Actually working on a project at the moment designing a learning space for the use of digital media… Will be posting updates on my blog. Currently looking for ideas and thoughts from teachers who may have some ideas, including photos etc etc.