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November 15, 2006, 03:04 PM ET
High Schools Feel the Pull of Social-Networking Sites
Ask a campus administrator about Facebook, and he or she will probably tell you two things right away: College students are hopelessly devoted to social networking, and they are distressingly naive about its perils. The juxtaposition of those two points is, among other things, an indictment of high schools — many of which have been ineffective in responding to the runaway popularity of social networks.
High schools that simply ban social networking on campus computers might have valid concerns about privacy and security, but they aren’t doing their students much good, writes Christopher Heun in School CIO. A number of schools — including Fairfax County Public Schools, in Virginia — are taking a different tack. Fairfax, which started blocking MySpace last year, is now setting up a local system that lets students and teachers engage in some light social networking.
Many schools are also starting to show more interest in blogs and Wikis, reports Mr. Heun, but school administrators aren’t likely to push for those tools on their own. Gwinnett County Public Schools, in Georgia, blocks social-networking sites and has no plans to accommodate blogs or Wikis — because, officials say, teachers haven’t explicitly asked to use the technologies. —Brock Read
Categories: Teaching, Student-Life
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