I had to think a little about Jesse Miller’s presentation on web safety and adolescent education. His ideas challenged some of what I took for granted: that confiscating cellphones would be a good idea, or that scaring students into web safety will work. Both turn out to be wrong, or at least a little misguided without some critical caveats.
Smartphones
So far I have heard conflicting advice about smartphones in the classroom. Some say they discourage or prevent students from using them, not just for their own sake, but for the sake of everyone else’s learning. To make classrooms free of such devices is to provide a sanctuary from their potentially toxic impact. Doomscrolling is not just one of the big 2020 words, it is also a practice credited for the emerging trend of adolescent anxiety about climate change.
Others have said they feel uncomfortable with the idea of policing students’ use of smartphones in their classroom. Confiscating devices can be dangerous, especially if the teacher breaks the item accidentally. Because many devices cost hundreds of dollars (if not thousands) today, any potential damage can cause financial stress. Questions of liability are also concerning.
Needless to say, we need a balanced perspective with strategies that allow students to learn how to live and focus without their phones, albeit without costly side effects to their property.
Paternalism
The other issue pertains to strategies for supporting youth as they use online media to express themselves. Originally I would have thought it useful to tell horror stories about stolen identities or mob mentalities on the web, if only to start conversations about Internet safety. Jesse Miller challenged this misconception, however, by suggesting that such an approach can come across as paternalistic, especially since most students are probably already intimately aware of these dangers.
Digital Citizenship
A strong alternative seems to include providing guidance on ways to act as a digital citizen. Here is an example of engaging the discourse at this level:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| The idea of being “proactive”: a useful term for anchoring a type of behaviour worth cultivating in a highly collaborative society | Could be more nuanced about the public/private concerns in a digital space |
| The idea of “curating” your online presence: clearly identifies the disparity between how people see us online vs. in physical spaces | Fails to address legal sides of being online |
| Explains how “following” can be perceived as a kind of endorsement | Talks about behaviour in general ways, but does not provide guidance on concrete tools for curating your online presence |
While I appreciate this video, the approach may be a little too general. Brevity can be fine, but teachers should also model what it looks like to think through online decisions and provide students with opportunities to curate their online presence in conscientious ways. In other words, this advice should implemented through student work in the classroom, albeit with due respect to legal requirements and thoughtful consideration of how to protect student confidentiality.
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