Many school districts are committed to maintaining safety for their students by restricting access to most Web Sites. While their intention is good, this ultimately does not teach students how to surf the web and Internet in a safe manner. It would really be nice if there was enough time in a school day to teach our students proper web etiquette, how to navigate, conduct research and effectively search for information in a safe, secure manner. Unfortunately, this is not possible. There are many school districts in Arizona that don't even have enough computers to share them with their students. These are often the districts that are in low socioeconomic regions of the city. This is creating a generation of students who have almost no experience with computers or the Internet. It's really sad.
Fortunately, I believe that we are approaching a crossroads in education where students and educators will teach each other how to safely browse the Internet, take part in social/peer networking, and create dynamic Web Sites. There may even come a time when all students will have a built in computer at their desks. Wouldn't that be great?
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I have to say that my school is one of those schools that don't have enough computers to share with the students. We have one computer lab but there is a schedule that we have to follow. The student get to go to the lab only for two consecutive weeks every quarter. The computer lab it's consedered like another special area like P.E and art.
It's also very sad that I only have two student computers in my classroom and the students have limited access to them because we are a "Reading First" school and the students have to follow a very strict reading schedule.
I've already started thinking how I can incorporate lessons on safe web researching into my writing lessons. I think that if we don't make the time, we will lose time later trying to fix the problems that may crop up.
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