Laura Ascione, the Assistant Editor of eSchool News was gracious enough to aks me for some of my thoughts about Social Networking sites and whether they are safe or not for her article entitled, Safe Social Networking Sites Emerge. Although I'm a bit skeptical of sites like Whyville - not because they are unsafe but it is simply becuase of...

Laura Ascione, the Assistant Editor of eSchool News was gracious enough to aks me for some of my thoughts about Social Networking sites and whether they are safe or not for her article entitled, Safe Social Networking Sites Emerge. Although I'm a bit skeptical of sites like Whyville - not because they are unsafe but it is simply becuase of their openness and ease-of-use that have made MySpace and YouTube so popular.

My 'real' issue has to do with why the debate about social networking sites is wrong-headed from the outset regarding these tools. It doesn't make any sense to label them safe or unsafe. The issue is about education, educators and how the sites are used.

I think it goes pretty much without saying that just about every SN (social networking) site can be used safely or unsafely. By that I mean even the most secure, locally-running site hosted solely within a school’s intranet is (generally) still susceptible to either being hacked from the outside or, more to the point, used by students in unsafe ways. One doesn’t have to read much about bullying at school (whether cyber-bullying or old fashioned face-to-face bullying) to know that even local-option tools can be misused. Incidentally, one can make the same point about pens and markers – students can use them ‘safely’ (to write on paper, posters, etc) and students can use the ‘unsafely’ (scrawling hate speech, for instance).

So the question is then, why are the uproar about sites like Facebook, Myspace (or even ratemyteacher.com, for that matter). Of course, I think it has to do with a couple of things: 1. Trust and 2. Oversight. It is very hard for me to imagine the Internet not continuing to explode with social networking tools (take a look at www.techcrunch.com for many examples) and students from K-12 onward having access. That is, these tools are here to stay. Period. So, is it logical (or even practical) to try to address oversight? I don’t really think so. Schools and IT folks will forever be trying to ban sites using all types of different filters, but I think it is pretty safe to say that is a lost cause. Moreover, I wouldn’t stand for this in my public library (blocking=censorship in my book) and yet some of the same folks who argue for blocking and banning of sites are the same ones who seem to feel that they should be able to get any book they want at the library. Additionally, just as fast as sites get blocked and filtered there are generally easy, readily available and non-invasive ways to access the same (or similar sites). Can’t get to instant messenger at school? Try www.meebo.com (Web based IM clients). Can’t get to Meebo? How about Gabbly? That blocked too? How about Writely? (and Writely is soon to be under the Google name and what district is going to block Google…). I think you see my point here.

So the central and only addressable issue is one of trust. How can we teach and trust our students to use the internet safely and wisely? That is, of course, why we need educated-educators and knowledgeable tech coordinators who’d rather avoid blocking sites and rather focus their efforts on genuinely teaching students how to use these tools. When to use them, what to be aware of, why to avoid some, etc. SN sites are great tools that open up a window of possibilities (easy publication, collaboration, and bridging distances). The question is do we trust what we’ve taught our students enough to let them use them? I hope so. If not, that says much more about us as educators than our students as users.