It seems that we are using such crude methods to sift negative internet content that we are now in effect disabling children in schools in developing the amazing potentials created by web 2, including collaborating with schools globally through blogs and wikis. The creative posibilities are limitless and we are holding both teachers and students back in not creating more sophisticated systems to keep access clean and safe.

The Frischbowl Educational Blog struggles with many of these themes in the determination that we cannot ignore technology in schools and that it isn’t for geeks – but for every teacher and every student.

http://thefischbowl.blogspot.com/

Keep up the good work!

Best of luck!

This is definitely a big and significant issue. It strikes that it’s a worrying issue in any research on young people (leading to a real ’statistical invisibility’ of young people) – which is made even worse when it comes to the web because of an overemphasis on risk and protection over opportunity and exploration.

I’m working on a project at the moment to look at how Youth Workers support young people to make the most of the opportunities and manage the risks of online social networking (http://blogs.nya.org.uk/ywsn) – but even trying to push for a balanced focus on opportunities – the public discourse is indeed being driven by what might be called the ‘child protection industry’ – in a way that makes keeping that balance very difficult.

There may be a sense that we’ve not got all that long to shift that public discourse back onto a more balanced footing before it gets even more bedded down. Of course – to do that we do need the data… which seems to take us almost back to square one… hmmm…