When it comes to the
internet, it can be a great resource but also a great threat, especially to our
young people. Consequently, there are laws enacted to help protect youth from
online harm. Two of these privacy laws include COPPA
and CIPA. Enacted in 1998, COPPA is the Children’s Online Privacy
Protection Act that has web sites require permission from parents for
individuals 13 and under to share personal information (Cobb County School
District). For example, to open an account on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest,
Tumblr, Kik, and Snapchat an individual must be 13 (Nominet: The
Social Age Study). This law is in place because the personal information of
those 13 and under needs to be protected so they are not naively giving out
their information on strange websites or social media without parent consent;
however, many kids can lie about their age to still create an account.
Statistics estimate that approximately 59%
of children have already used a social network by the time they are 10, and
that Facebook has the most users under the age of 13 (Nominet: The
Social Age Study). In fact, “52 per cent of 8 to
16-year-olds admit they ignore Facebook’s age restriction” (Nominet: The
Social Age Study). Lastly, COPPA tries to make sure that websites requiring
information from children can be viewed by the parent and informs them who else
can view the information.
CIPA is the Children’s Internet
Protection Act which was put into effect in 2001 (Cobb County School District).
This law is in place to put restrictions on public and school
libraries to ensure they have a policy of Internet safety for minors. Moreover, CIPA calls for blocks and filters
on any web sites that may be inappropriate or harmful to students. If a public school
or library does not follow the CIPA regulations, their funding will not be
provided (Cobb County School District). The rationale for this law resides in the fact that students and minors should not have access to potentially explicit internet content in a public place such as a library or school where they should be safe from threats, including online threats. Researchers have suggested that the average age at which children have first viewed some sort of pornography is eight years old, largely due to the widely available internet access (Focus on the Family).
Consequently, as teachers we need to
be aware of these privacy policies and the discussed rationale providing explanations for their enactment. As educators in the digital age, we need to do our research
to make sure that the online resources we are going to use in our classroom are age appropriate and abides these laws and parent consent. For example, a
potential teaching resource I could use in my future classroom would be Quizlet. Quizlet
allows users under 13 to sign up but they have special restrictions for that
student such as requiring a parent email address. However, as the teacher I can
create an account and set up classrooms and play Quizlet Live with students, which is
a great study resource. This is great for schools with one to one technology.
Also, Discovery Education is
a great free online resource for science teachers like myself to use because they
can find STEM based lesson plans to use in the classroom. I also would want to take it upon myself as a teacher to educate my students about the potential threats of the online world and how to also be a responsible internet user. There are a lot of resources online of informational videos I can use to talk to my students about CIPA and COPPA such as tes teach that has a whole slide share set up with presentations and videos for both students and teachers describing the laws.
References:
Cobb
County School District: http://www.cobbk12.org/centraloffice/instructionaltechnology/IL/Web2_0/cipa_coppa_overview.pdf
Nominet:
The Social Age Study
Focus
on the Family: When Children View
Pornography http://www.focusonthefamily.com/parenting/sexuality/when-children-use-pornography/when-children-view-pornography
I find this topic fascinating because it can be pushed to further analyze the values of a culture (as a social studies major that is my thing). I am going to play some devils advocate, question nearly everything in here and most likely not have an answer.
ReplyDeleteSo first: The reasoning behind these two laws is to protect the young people of our society. Fine. But what exactly are we protecting them from? In this blog I can isolate threats: Sharing of personal information (covered by Coppa) and exposure to explicit content. I can totally understand the Coppa one and the fear of young people sharing too much personal information but the exposure to explicit content requires some unpacking.
In the blog you point out the statistic that the average age at which children have viewed some kind of pornographic content is age 8. Shocking to be honest but is this a bad thing? When I was in high school we did a two week tour of Europe. In one of the gas stations we stopped at I noticed the magazine rack where an entire shelf of pornographic magazines was uncovered and sitting in the open. Behind me in line was a mother and her young son. This child could plainly see the explicit content on the cover of the magazine and this startled me. But as I came to learn, Europeans don't have the same view of sex and sexuality as we do in the United States. We have a very restrictive view of sex and sexuality. Why? Is there a "right" and "Wrong" answer to this? No I don't think so, but I would argue that by creating the sexually repressed culture that we have we only harm ourselves and our young people because when they do encounter these topics (well before the actual age of consent, as you point out in the earlier statistic) they don't have avenues they can follow to ask questions or gather information. So our young people are going in blind!
I don't intend for this to be offensive or to start and argument, but I just thought this was a good opportunity for some cultural analysis. Thank you!
I understand the point you are making, and I agree and disagree. I believe high shoolers should have learned strategies in lower grades for safe internet use to the point that they shouldn't need filters.
DeleteOn the other hand, how do we teach safe strategies and get student to internalize why one needs to follow them? Referring to your comment above, pornography addiction starts young and it no longer requires a trip to the store to buy a magazine, when the stimga alone kept some people from buying them. It is available in every hand and on every device. The wake that this sickness leaves behind in families is unprecedented and it is the young woman who pay the price of being objectified going to Meijer for milk. The message given when a male in the life of a girl has this addiction, and can get internalized, is that they exist merely for the enjoyment of the male gender, and they are second class, when nothing could be further from the truth. Children have to be protected from this ruining the rest of their lives and future relationships if it becomes an addiction. Research shows it actually rewires the brain and the person really isn't who they used to be. Rehab clinics are exploding due to the research and the fact that easy availability is leading to this addiction in young and old men. Women can be affected too, but it is much rarer and the 'wake' plays out a little differently.
So, the question remains, how do we teach children safe internet strategies to the point that they understand them and navigate in a way not to harm themselves or others; so they aren't 'set loose' after high school graduation unfiltered and not having healthy, safe strategies?
Sam,
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your comment and analysis of the opposing view of this argument. I actually do agree with you, as I have thought about this with many things that have age limits here in the U.S that are older than other countries like drinking for example. I think this applies to this Internet safety law because as you said if things like drugs, alcohol and material potentially viewed as explicit were not as repressed or avoided would we have as much of an issue with them in our culture? This is something to think about, but I also think that either way there needs to be restrictions in public libraries and schools as CIPA outlines.
I would also like to point out some social hypocrisy. There is the phrase "sex sells", so many of our advertisement (most of which is aimed at men) includes hyper-sexualization of the product or of women using the product. Yet we have this law meant to protect children from this explicit content while commercials they see on the television or internet almost blatantly sexualizes women or products. How is this okay? Granted, the commercials don't target young children, but that doesn't actually prevent them from viewing. And while on this subject, when it comes to products that are actually sexual or remotely involved in sex we see the opposite. "Male enhancement" drugs are desexualized.
DeleteI know that I am making vast generalizations, but I believe the trends still hold some truth to them.
Overall then, what do you think is the best way to approach these issues both at home and in schools?
DeleteI think that social constructions require incredible amounts of time and energy to deconstruct. I don't think that sudden and complete openness is going to do anyone any favors. However on issues of partial nudity or double standards I think we can begin there. For example the hullabaloo over breast feeding in public is pretty outrageous considering lives literally depend on it.
DeleteIn Schools I think that when the time comes for sexual education, or reproductive health, barring any sort of comprehensive information seems to only leave the students uninformed when confronted by these situations.
Courtney,
ReplyDeleteYou've brought a lot of great research and information to us this week about COPPA and CIPA laws and their intentional and unintentional affects as well as how these laws play out in real situations and how they protect the students and their information. As teachers, being aware of these laws and how they play out is important for our students and ourselves.
My CT loves to use YouTube to show videos and pictures to help students better understand the material and concepts we discuss in class, but she's so careful about what she shows up on the projector. The students love to have a "Friday Fail" and they send her videos to show at the end of the hour on Friday, but she made it very clear at the beginning of the semester that they need to email her the link to the video and that she'll watch it AT HOME "because I love my job too much" so she can make sure it's appropriate for everyone - no swearing, crude behavior, etc. Then she makes sure the video is loaded and full screen before unfreezing the projector from the previous page so the students don't see any of the thumbnails on the queue incase there's something inappropriate on the side. And when she's looking for images to insert in her notes, she's careful to make sure no students are around since Google searches sometimes pull up questionable things, or she does it at home.
ReplyDeleteWe also use YouTube as an educational tool in my placement at times. However, I am always reminded to actually watch the whole video before viewing it in class because you just never know what might be in that video. I experienced this in my current unit planning for my 6th grade life science course. I wanted to watch a video in the class about flash flooding. The home video I had chosen was appearing to be a good fit but then at the end of the video I could kind of hear the person recording it swear. Consequently, I chose another video to play instead. We should always try and have our students best interest in mind. Even though my students probably hear swearing or even swear themselves, does that mean its appropriate for me to use a YouTube video that swears?
DeleteThese are great strategies for teaching and offer a safe environment for all students. Bravo!
DeleteThe Youtube tool is great for use in physical education as well. I think the appropriateness of videos we use in classrooms is sometimes overlooked. "Norms" in society aren't always what we want to portray to youth in an academic setting. For example, we like to show dance video tutorials to get students moving in a creative way. But we have to be careful because in a lot of these videos, the instructor is not dressed appropriately, wish shorty shorts and crop tops. It's kind of the same situation that you brought up with Angela. Even though students might dress that way outside of school, does it necessarily mean we should be encouraging it in school?
ReplyDeleteHannah,
ReplyDeleteYour posed question reminds me of a work place environment. Even if adults dress a certain way outside of the walls of their work, there are still certain expectations for a professional environment. I think this is the same for schools. I don't think we need to pretend that students do dress or behave differently outside of school; however, schools should be a professional environment with certain behavior expectations. Consequently, I think as teachers we should continue to censor our videos so they are professional and exemplify appropriate and professional school behavior.
I know for a fact that I have always ignored anything online that ever asked me if I was old enough. It amazes me how easy it is for anyone to view anything on the internet. When it comes to showing videos in class, I don't think swearing is always a big issue depending on the grade level. I am around 11th and 12th graders who swear a decent amount. Me and my CT tell the students to watch their language but that doesn't always stop them. It's part of their norms. We are watching a movie called "the interrupters" which is about the violence in Chicago. There is swearing but it gives the students the raw reality of how these people feel and what they are going through. There is much worse stuff on the internet besides swearing in a video (depending on age).
ReplyDeleteGreat thoughts on this topic Courtney. It is really interesting that the only thing restricting people from internet content is simply clicking a box to indicate age. There is not much incentive to tell the truth especially because most of the time students are not directly monitored by adults.
ReplyDeleteI never thought website restriction would be such a challenge for instructors. What I mean by that is I did not anticipate the importance of doing research on websites that I would be sending students to see if they are inappropriate at all or not. I have come across a few websites that remove ads and keep content appropriate. I always figured I would use youtube for videos, but sometimes ads and links are inappropriate or even simply distracting. Going through a 3rd party website can completely remove distractions from Youtube videos which I think is great. Not something I anticipated having to do, but definitely worth it.
Thanks for the links to some quality teaching resources! They look like they would be really helpful for students and to be able to stay focused on learning while on the internet.