Techno-peril, part 2

Ahhh, the perils of technology...

The final question I would like to consider is that of public versus private. I am thinking primarily of classroom blogs, and whether or not it is alright to have video or pictures of kids on the classroom website. I like to tread lightly in this area. The argument was made in class today: “Where is the danger? Do you think that little Johnny is actually endangered by having his face and voice on the site? How would that play out?” I see where this is coming from. Odds are that no evil person will target one child from a classroom website alone, then stalk him in real life. (Odds are, but of course, it is possible). The more likely danger is in dysfunctional families, where a child is in foster care or with one parent, and another parent poses a threat of some kind.

However, despite that, I’m still wishing to address the predator problem. A few years ago, I was a member of an online community of like-minded parents. Several of us ran online businesses related to this (e.g., cloth diaper-makers), and lots of moms were on that online community just for social networking. It happened that several moms were contacted via their online businesses, because in a child pornography arrest, in which the man had something like 12,000 images of children, several pictures were lifted from these cloth diapering sites. Now – did the pedophile actually reach these children? No. Was there some physical threat to the kids? Probably not. Did these mothers mind that images of their children were used as sexual objects for this pedophile? Absolutely! Aside from the (remote) possibility that interest could turn into obsession, and the threat could become real-world, even just knowing that your child has been the object of a pedophile’s desire is an abhorrent thought. And it happens.

Our world has shrunk, since the inception of the internet. It can be a wonderful thing … we can keep in touch with friends and relatives on the other side of the world without expense or delay; we can share professional ideas with colleagues whether or not we know them; even medical consultations can occur without the patient actually going anywhere. But by the same token, threats which were once very isolated and localized, are now sprung wide open. When, in my childhood, the town may have had a dozen known pedophiles, in order to be victimized by one of them, you still had to actually come into contact with him. He needed to walk by your yard, or stop you on your way home, or take advantage of his relationship of trust with you. Now, that barrier is gone. Any pedophile has instant access to images of millions of children. Social networking sites, blogs, email … all provide easy access directly to one particular child, if that’s what the pedophile wants. It has become much more difficult to protect kids from certain threats.

No doubt you see where this is going. I do love the idea of the classroom blog, in general, but I am very concerned about the potential danger the children are exposed to as a result. I struggle with this quite a bit. I have kids who use the internet. The balance needs to be struck, between threats and freedom. I have had a family blog before. My solution was, since I was going to include photos, to not make reference to their names. (The thinking being that if the virtual threat ever became real, the predator could have so much information about the family via the blog, and if he had names as well, it would be far too easy to dupe a child). That would not work for a classroom blog, because by its very nature, the viewer knows where the school is, and probably the grade, and almost certainly the teacher’s name – any child in that class can be pinpointed easily. I believe I would use a password system, and perhaps change the password every month or so, lest it wind up in the wrong hands.

I think that technology belongs in the classroom. I just also think that just as we would enter a new swimming hole with caution, it’s vital that we consider how we make the transition toward technology infusion; we don’t want to dive head-first, and end up with irreversible consequences.

PS: Must add this bit - since writing this post 2 days ago, I now know about kidblog.org ... which really makes for a safe online experience for kids. I don't think I'd have any problem using this platform in the classroom - ahhhh. Relief!