זה כן למערכת החינוכית!
תוויות: גלישה בטוחה, כלים חברתיים, נוערToday's teenagers are being socialised into a society complicated by shifts in the public and private. New social technologies have altered the underlying architecture of social interaction and information distribution. They are embracing this change, albeit often with the clumsy candour of an elephant in a china shop. Meanwhile, most adults are panicking. They do not understand the shifts that are taking place and, regardless, they don't like what they’re seeing.
This leaves educators in a peculiar bind. More conservative educators view social technologies as a product of the devil, bound to do nothing but corrupt and destroy today's youth. Utterly confused, the vast majority of educators are playing ostrich, burying their heads in the sand and hoping that the moral panics and chaos that surround the social technologies will just disappear. Slowly, a third group of educators are emerging - those who believe that it is essential to understand and embrace the new social technologies so as to guide youth through the murky waters that they present. This path is tricky because it requires educators to let go of their pre-existing assumptions about how the world works. Furthermore, as youth are far more adept at navigating the technologies through which these changes are taking place, educators must learn from their students in order to help them work through the challenges that they face.
קולה של בויד הוא אולי הקול הבולט ביותר בכיוון הזה, אבל רצוי להזכיר גם את אנסטסיה גודסטין שכתבה את הספר Totally Wired ומפרסמת בלוג באותו שם. גודסטין כותבת על נושאים רבים הקשורים להתנהגותם של בני נוער ברשת (ויש לי רשימה די ארוכה של מאמרונים שלה שאליהם אני פשוט לא מוצא את הזמן להתייחס), והשבוע היא פרסמה משהו די ברוח של דבריה של בויד בשם The "Totally Wired" Message:There has been a lot of headline grabbing coverage of online predators or stranger danger and what kids and teens are doing wrong online or with cell phones -- whether it's bullying, stalking, or posting inappropriate content. There are predators out there, but the reality is most teens just ignore them or delete them like the creepy spam they are. And yes, teens make stupid choices sometimes (I'm sure we all remember a few poor choices of our own), they just have a more public forum to do it in. But the reality is that teens are using technology to do mostly benign stuff -- listen to music, write on a blog (yes they're writing!), keep in touch with old friends, make plans, connect with other teens around similar interests or causes, decorate they're MySpace page or avatar as a way of expressing themselves.
ואם כבר כותבים על הנושא של הבלבול בין הפרטי והציבורי שטכנולוגיות אינטרנטיות חברתיות יוצרות, יש אולי טעם לציין מאמר מ-Wired המעלה בעיות של פרטיות הנובעות מפרסומות באינטרנט, והיכולת לשרטט פרופיל של משתמשים דרך הרגלי הגלישה שלהם, והאפשרות לכוון פרסומות ישירות אל טעמם. המאמר מוסר לנו ש: … anonymous or pseudonymous profiles can be readily connected to real world identity. While advertisers may not collect PII (Personally Identifiable Information), they do collect IP addresses, which can be traced to an individual most of the time. Also, Carnegie Mellon professor Latanya Sweeney has demonstrated that one can identify 87 percent of the U.S. population from ZIP code, birth date and gender alone.
