NSBA report examines how youths interact online

After finishing their assigned reading, Guerilla Season, the eighth-graders discuss the Civil War novel on an interactive blog, answering and posting questions along with their grandparents, students in California, and even the author, Pat Hughes, who lives in Philadelphia.

Today, more teachers like Langhorst are experimenting with new Internet technologies while simultaneously broadening their students’ learning experiences.

“It is absolutely when we walk in the door, part and parcel of our academic program,” said Chris Lehmann, principal of the Science Leadership Academy, a public charter school in Philadelphia. “At our school -- and I think this is going to have to be true at every school in the next five to 10 years -- technology is like oxygen. It is going to have to be ubiquitous, necessary, and invisible.”

According to Creating and Connecting: Research and Guidelines on Online Social -- and Educational -- Networking, a study released this month by NSBA and Grunwald Associates LLC, an independent research firm, students ages 9-17 spend nearly as much time socializing on the Web as they do watching television.

For teenagers, that comes to about nine hours a week. The study’s authors describe how Internet activities, like blogging and managing personal websites, can be used for educational purposes, as well as entertainment, and the study encourages school leaders to explore ways to integrate social networking into the classroom instructional program.

Susan Barnes, the associate director of the lab for social computing at the Rochester Institute of Technology, defines social networking as the use of Internet technologies that allow individuals to connect and communicate with others whom they would normally not meet face to face.

Social networking includes the popular websites MySpace and Facebook, where users create virtual profiles that can include pictures, music, and videos, as well as chat rooms, message boards, and other interactive online activities.

“When the Web initially became a common thing for public use, it was largely a flat tool for one-way pushes of information,” said Ann Flynn, director of education technology programs at NSBA. “It was more like an electronic brochure: You went on the Web, and you got information.”

“Web 2.0” defines the second generation of the Web, Flynn said, which allows individuals to create their own content. Social networking merely reflects many of the web 2.0 tools, bringing them all together in sites like My­Space.

The Grunwald/NSBA study is based on a survey of more than 2,000 students, parents, and school district leaders on what students do online and what youths and adults think about these activities.

According to the report, education is a popular topic in online settings. Almost 60 percent of students who use social networking talk about education online, and more than 50 percent talk about specific schoolwork.

A majority of districts have strict guidelines on the use of the Internet, and more than half prohibit the use of social networking sites in schools. Most school officials expressed interest in social networking as an educational tool but said they wanted to use resources that have an educational value.

To help school board members “strike the appropriate balance between protecting their students and providing a 21st century education,” the study recommends board members explore social networking sites so their “decisions and perceptions are based on real experiences.”

The report also recommends that school leaders:

• encourage the continued exploration of the educational value of social networking;

• ensure equitable access to help close the digital divide; and

• pay attention to what the most engaged students in social networking are doing and re-examine old guidelines that prohibit social networking.

“Students need to be more engaged with a wider audience,” Flynn said. “It’s very hard for a student to have something widely read and published in print. It’s an expensive and very tedious proposition.”

But with online technologies, Flynn said, students can “create content, have it up in minutes, and get commentary from experts and people all over the world. . . . It’s transcending time and space for making connections globally.”

West Virginia is one state that is wholeheartedly embracing these new tools. In July, teachers from every county gathered for a leadership institute where they learned about digital learning, the 21st century skills students will need to compete successfully in a global economy, and how to design curricula to achieve these goals.

State education leaders have developed technology standards focusing on information and communication skills, thinking and reasoning skills, and personal and workplace skills, which they plan to integrate into the curriculum, said Carla Williamson, the leadership institute’s director.

“The students in our schools today have had this technology through most of their lives, if not all of their lives,” William­son said. “This is how they learn. This is their world; this is how they take in information. When we bring them into a school setting -- which is based on pen and paper and chalk on a board -- that is not authentic to them, that is putting them into our world.”

Despite the attention on the benefits of technology, districts still face some challenges, including issues related to privacy and safety, particularly the need to protect children from online predators.

“One of the things we have to understand is that part of our job as educators today is to teach students responsible and ethical information use,” Leh­mann said. “Every student needs to understand they are powerful content creators and users, and they need to understand what that means.”

Barnes, an expert in online interpersonal relationships, believes students need to understand the ramifications of their online actions. “Kids just don’t seem to understand that when they put something out on the Internet it’s public; it’s not private,” she said.

Educators also are concerned about the overuse and misuse of technology.

“There has been a lot of controversy over what is happening to the English language; what is happening to grammar as kids are using these programs,” Barnes said.

She also encouraged districts to question why they are using a particular piece of technology.

“I always ask, how is it going to enhance the educational experience?” she said. “We have to look at education and see whether this stuff fits into it or not. It can’t be them [children] pushing us into it.”

Despite these concerns, educators believe social networking can have a positive impact on educational outcomes.

“Increasing communication can really help students,” Lang­horst said. “It makes my classroom a better classroom because it’s not just me and my four walls. I mean literally, I can contact anyone in the world and bring them into my classroom.”

• More than one in five students ages 9-17 with online access post comments on message boards every day.

• Forty-one percent post messages, 32 percent download music, 30 percent download videos, and 24 percent post photos at least once a week.

• Twelve percent update their personal website or online profile every day, and 25 percent do so at least weekly.

• Thirty percent of students have their own blogs and 17 percent update their blogs at least once a week.

• Nearly 60 percent of students discuss education-related topics online such as college planning or learning outside of school.

• About 22 percent of students surveyed are “nonconformists,” which means they break one or more online safety or behavior rules, such as posting inappropriate pictures or pretending to be someone else. These youths are significantly heavier users of social networking sites than other students.

• Ninety-two percent of school districts require parents or students to sign an Internet use policy, and 98 percent use software to block access to inappropriate sites.

• Nearly all districts (96 percent) say at least some of their teachers assign homework that requires use of the Internet to complete, and 35 percent say more than half of their teachers do so.

• About 7 percent of students said they’ve been subjected to “cyberbullying,” and 7 percent said they’ve been asked about their personal identity while online.