Schools and New Media Troubles

In my last blog post I talked about new media in education and of course one of the biggest new medias in education is the Internet. In this blog post I’m going to continue talking about schools and Internet but I’m also going to talk about Texting.

There have been a lot of articles about students getting in trouble misusing technology in schools and with school friends. This week at Forbes Elementary School in American Fork, Utah the police were contacted about two eleven-year old elementary school children. What could they have been doing that needed police involvement?

The children used school computers to view a pornographic site. They then went and told more of their classmates to view the pornographic images. Eleven fifth graders had seen the porn site before any adults realized what was being viewed.

After an investigation it was decided that the school was not to blame. They were using a filter through the Utah Education Network, which wasn’t blocking the search word lesbian. If it’s not the schools fault then whose fault is it? I think this is a common question that parents of this school are currently asking themselves.

The Deseret News interviewed a local child psychologist who recommended that parents take the following steps to protect their children and keep situations like this from happening again;
* Make sure the computer is in a public place
* Install a Web filter
* Require a password to enter the computer, known only by the adults
* Monitor viewing history and cookies
* Be around when your children are using the Internet so you can supervise
* Talk to your children about what they're viewing online
* Teach them how to deal with disturbing images if they stumble across them accidentally (http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705297477/Porn-viewed-on-school-computer-spurs-worry.html).

The Internet is not the only new media in which school children can be exposed to inappropriate images. Now that cell phones are becoming more and more common in high school a new phenomenon is hitting American teens, sexting. Sexting is combining sex and texting and it’s terrifying for parents. It’s not only confined to high school but is happening in middle school also. In fact in Los Alamitos Middle School in California, a girl took naked pictures of herself and sent them to her boyfriend. A big problem is that her boyfriend showed them to his friends.

At young ages without fully developed brains children won’t fully think through consequences of their actions. Not only is the girl going to be completely embarrassed by these photos circulating around her school but her boyfriend was showing and distributing the pictures to his friends which is considered distributing child pornography since his girlfriend was under eighteen so her boyfriend could face criminal charges.

I don’t think parents understand the magnitude of the issue. “Last fall, the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy surveyed teens and young adults about sexting or posting such materials online. The results revealed that 39 percent of teens are sending or posting sexually suggestive messages, and 48 percent reported receiving such messages (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29740960/).”