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August 15, 2002
Net-Wise Teens: Safety, Ethics, and Innovation (cont'd)
Take Advantage of Tools Kids Use
Fears about teenage digital troublemaking, in addition to legitimate concerns about online safety, sometimes keeps adults from embracing the Internet as a tool for innovation and exploration. But it's not all about dangerous and inappropriate use. Consider these four examples of ways to approach learning with Net-savvy kids.
Discussion Springboard. Online bulletin boards offer opportunities for students, especially those shy about public speaking, to discuss issues and problem solve beyond the classroom, or to invite experts to join a classroom conversation from afar. (To get started, see "Threaded Discussions:A First Step" and "Bulletin Boards: Expand and Improve Written Communication")
Collaboration. Live chat environments can also be harnessed for student collaboration. For example, as part of a cross-cultural project, students at the Brookwood School instant messaged back and forth with students in Japan and England about "likes" and "dislikes." Later, they wrote and posted online magazine-style articles about what they discovered. In another joint project, science students at Brookwood worked with peers in Pennsylvania and Colorado to study the mammalian dive reflex. After collecting data separately, they met in an AOL chat room to discuss their conclusions. The chat was projected onto a large screen so students and teacher could see the conversation in progress.
Learning Simulations. Simulations are an area with tremendous potential for schools, especially given kids' natural interest in online gaming and playing with different identities.
Up-and-comers like Bike Rally from the National Science Foundation will allow student players to test out physics principles in different virtual reality environments, and even consult with experts for clues in real time. Look for Bike Rally, and more programs like it, to come out in the next two years.
 | | Spam savvy: When registering at commercial Web sites, eight-grader Zai uses "fake" e-mail accounts she's set up soley for the purpose of making sure junk mail isn't sent to her primary account. |
Peer Networking. Peer-to-peer technology is controversial because it makes it easy for computer users to share pirated software, pornography, and other not-so-educational material with each other. However, peer-to-peer also has great potential to be used in a positive way. Groove Networks, for instance, offers peer computing applications that allow Windows end users to sidestep a central server and directly collaborate with each other in a secure, online environment. In education, this means students working on a project could chat about research findings in real time, share multimedia presentations, and even co-browse the Web to examine project-related sites together. What's more, they could also securely collaborate with students at other schools without being blocked by firewalls. While peer-to-peer is still finding a place in the business world, its potential to cut server costs and free up bandwidth could be appealing to schools as they continue to expand their technology infrastructure.
Even if you're not yet using the Internet in your classroom, you can still learn a lot about your students by simply logging on. Go to teen-oriented message boards to find out the issues of the day. Log on to AOL and try instant messaging with a student about a homework assignment. Indeed, the best way to learn about middle and high school-aged kids' digital lives is not necessarily tabulating the research, but by paying close attention to what they're doing. After all, in this arena, it's the students who are the experts.
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