My wife, after spending the last 10 years as a teacher librarian is back in the classroom. She's doing a fantastic job and has committed to share her students work through her blog. I set her up with posterous and it's working really well. She's posted more than once a day sharing photos, videos and is getting great feedback from students and parents. She'll be shifting to students posting their own work soon. 

She told me interesting story today. Each week she does a little warm up activity called "Minute to Win It". She draws names out of a hat to determine the order. Today she realized that the one student that would not get picked today would not take it well. She knew the student  was going to cry.  Just as she was about to film the other student, the water works began with loud wailing. My wife turned to the student and said, "Do you want people on the internet to see you crying?" She was shocked when the student immediately stopped crying. She didn't need to say another word. She didn't think it would make that much of a difference but it did. Later the 8 year old came to her and said, "Did you erase the part where I was crying?"

​​It doesn't mean that 8 year olds should not be allowed to cry or show emotion. They absolutely should. But the idea that we see value in learning in public, even at 8 is an increasingly important idea for all. There's a time and place to cry act like a kid. But even kids need to understand there are times to "be on". A blog is a good place for that. 

If you don't think that kids get digital identity, guess again. This child goes home every night and sees all classmates and themselves online. They realize it's a public place and wants to show their best selves. A good lesson to consider, even at 8. 

Data can be extremely useful and yet our obsession with it is leading to some really weird and potentially damaging decisions in all areas of life.

Parents are just bad at risk assessment,” said Christie Barnes, a mother of four and the author of “The Paranoid Parents Guide.” “We are constantly overestimating rare dangers while underestimating common ones.” Nytimes.com

The one that continues to haunt me is the very scary Internet predator. I've written about it often enough but what I want to address here is the way in which data has be used carelessly and unethically to promote fear and sell products.

“One in five children is now approached by online predators." This statistic has been quoted numerous times by media and other agencies to paint a very inaccurate picture of life online. From the Skeptical Inquirer

This alarming statistic is commonly cited in news stories about prevalence of Internet predators, but the factoid is simply wrong. The “one in five statistic” can be traced back to a 2001 Department of Justice study issued by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (“The Youth Internet Safety Survey”) that asked 1,501 American teens between 10 and 17 about their online experiences. Anyone bothering to actually read the report will find a very different picture. Among the study’s conclusions: “Almost one in five (19 percent) . . . received an unwanted sexual solicitation in the past year.” (A “sexual solicitation” is defined as a “request to engage in sexual activities or sexual talk or give personal sexual information that were unwanted or, whether wanted or not, made by an adult.” Using this definition, one teen asking another teen if her or she is a virgin—or got lucky with a recent date—could be considered “sexual solicitation.”) Not a single one of the reported solicitations led to any actual sexual contact or assault. Furthermore, almost half of the “sexual solicitations” came not from “predators” or adults but from other teens—in many cases the equivalent of teen flirting. When the study examined the type of Internet “solicitation” parents are most concerned about (e.g., someone who asked to meet the teen somewhere, called the teen on the telephone, or sent gifts), the number drops from “one in five” to just 3 percent.

So that figure gets blatantly tossed around and pretty soon it becomes part of the culture. The "one in five" stat is used more than you can imagine. Using volatile terms like "sexual solicitation" and then jumping to "predator" is a sneaky and unethical. It reminds me of lawyers who might use a phrase or question that is inadmissible but once it's out there, it's in the mind of the jurors. I've been noticing some questioning of that belief but it doesn't help when governments back organizations who perpetuate a myth. While preparing for a recent symposium on digital citizenship I came across this site sponsored by the government of Canada and several high profile communication companies. They've nicely packaged this for teachers and while there likely is some decent content on there I get more than a little irritated when I see this about the risks of social networking:

Sexual offenders target social networking sites where kids are encouraged to create online diaries and connect with new people.

Really? (doing my best Seth Meyers imitation) What happens when a well meaning teacher or parent looks for help and curriculum to help students in their digital endeavours? They quickly develop paranoia and fear in themselves and potentially their students and children. 

I'm not nearly as diligent about research and data mining as I could be, but it's obvious that we continue to need filters and the ability and desire to ask the right questions to undercover the truth. Even when we do this, there will still be debate and interpretation of that data but in this case, there's not much to debate. Believing that online interactions put you in danger of sexual offenders is shameful abuse of data. We need to stop relying on others to interpret data and respond and eliminate unfounded fears that many are using to suppress learning.

Our district uses its front page to post success stories from our 40 schools. These range from academic achievements to athletic accomplishments of school teams. Schools post the stories to their own Website and submit them to me to post to the district page where generally there is more traffic. This one was sent to me earlier in the week.

Tanner Spencer from Craik, SK, attended team Canada's World Junior top 35 camp in Orlando, Florida from October 5th to October 15th.  Tanner is the youngest Saskatchewan player ever chosen to go.  The majority of the team was from BC, Ontario, and Quebec.  One player was chosen from the Maritimes, one from Manitoba, one from Saskatchewan and two from Alberta.  Tanner started pitching the first game in Orlando, started the fourth game and closed the last game.  He gave up no earned runs on six innings pitched.  Congratulations Tanner.

As soon as I read it I realize they had violated our district policy which states we will never publish a photo of a student with a full name. I also realized in that moment how absurd that policy is.

As we explore the idea of a digital footprint and identity we must consider that at some point we want to our students to own their work and accomplishments and showcase them to a variety of audiences. If I'm Tanner or Tanner's parents I want as many people as possible to know of his accomplishments. I immediately sent out my concerns about our policy to our school technology representatives and one of the school leaders, Angus Mcintosh, responded this way:

It is in Tanner's very best interest, at this point,  that everybody knows is name. He will have offers for scholarships to Major U.S Colleges and Universities and already has a collection of business cards from Major League scouts. The more people that know about him, the more  choices and opportunities it will create for him. People "knowing" Tanners name started somewhere, and the word has spread that there is a very good young pitcher living in Craik and playing ball in Moose Jaw. He has many doors open for him to choose from.

But for every Tanner Spencer, there is the opposite. There are children with  unfortunate backgrounds that need protection in terms of privacy. We know that and will always respect that. But I also think (hope?) they are as rare as Tanner.

And here's the point that is critical.

And then there is the rest. There are kids with special talents that few people know about. What about them? I would bet our schools are full of kids like Tanner but their talent is in Art, or Drama, or Math, or Writing etc. Most kids probably don't even know where their talent is! But if they did, would they be able to open the doors like Tanner has? How does a superior math student get "recruited" to a University? Can a dance student get into the National Ballet if nobody knows what they have accomplished? At some point everyone needs to "sell themselves" in a job interview, or a business proposal, or even a meeting with the bank manager for your first mortgage.   If we can show kids that their accomplishments are to be proud of, and that the accomplishments are not anonymous, we can teach self confidence, and true self esteem.

While this confidence and self esteem can be and should be established offline even more so that online, we do a huge disservice to our students when in efforts to protect them we inadvertently rob them of the opportunity to be recognized.

I get pretty zealous over stuff like this and perhaps I've missed something here. If I have please share.

I’ve been following Dan’s blog and shared items in his reader for about the past 2 months. It’s interesting to notice where we do and don’t overlap on the idea of personal branding or digital footprint.

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