What is a “walled garden” you might ask? The term refers to the filters that are put in place to protect individuals from accessing harmful content on the web. At first glance, it appears that walled gardens are a good thing, especially for schools. Who would argue that we need to protect our students? Roblyer and Doering state in their book Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching (2013) “Students can be impacted negatively by the internet in many ways, including accessing inappropriate materials, online predators, sales pitches aimed at children, privacy issues, cyberbullying, and computer viruses.”
Many in favor of walled garden may say that by limiting a child’s access in school to only websites deemed safe, they are keeping harmful content away from children. I would contend just the opposite and would even go so far as to say that walled gardens put students in far more danger than we think. Most students do not only access the internet Monday-Friday 9 am to 4 pm during the school year calendar. They are digital natives, and as such, are interacting with technology on a regular basis outside of our classrooms. While some parents do very closely monitor their child’s access to the internet at home, many are very unaware of the amount of time even young children are online. Many do not know of the vast number of sites out there that children find on their own. While most parents are very comfortable teaching about stranger danger, bullying, and other threats that exist in the physical world, many do not know how to teach their child how to stay safe online, as this is something that was never explicitly taught to them.
While we don’t want to see it, the threat is there. According to the FBI Website (2011), “Recent studies show that one in seven youngsters has experienced unwanted sexual solicitations online. One in three has been exposed to unwanted sexual material online. One in eleven has been harassed or bullied online.” This makes the role of education in the area of digital citizenship and safety critical. It is the school’s responsibility to teach students how to be safe, responsible, and thoughtful while online. If walled gardens are in place, students cannot practice the skills they need in a supportive, structured, monitored environment and are left to navigate the challenges on their own.
I am not supporting removing all filters, but I am advocating that those sites that are 95% safe and are excellent for instructional purposes be allowed in schools. I also believe that teachers should be given curricular resources and professional development to utilize in teaching children how to handle the 5% issue. Just as we cannot watch our children 24 hours a day, and must teach them how to stay safe when we are not there, so too must we extend this to their online experiences.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on this topic,
Tammy
I wrote about this in a prior class, and my feelings closely match yours. My kids are all high-poverty and special education. Few of them are connected outside of the classroom. If I don’t teach them how to use the internet safely (my school blocks almost everything), then who will? Teaching solid digital citizenship makes more sense to me then blocking sites. And how many times have schools had to make changes because students found a way around the filters? They are smarter than we give them credit for.
It is so true that you talk about students getting around filters. It is a daily stressor when dealing with 1:1 chromebooks in our school. I think there has to be a better solution than constantly trying to be one step ahead of VERY tech-savvy students. Let’s teach them to use those critical thinking skills for coding and program development and teach them how to handle these websites they find.
Lisa, you are so correct about how savvy even young children are with technology. I find it frustrating to spend hours working on lessons at home only to go into school and find that the sites I was going to have my students access are blocked at our school. It is very interesting that we teach to polar opposite demographics, yet our struggles in this area are very similar.
I like the comment you made about teaching kids to deal with the 5%…bringing down some filters can help us teach kids how to use technology and the internet appropriately in a safe environment. My school opened up blogger for me last year, but refused to allow commenting (even with monitoring). However, it does seem to be a time-issue. Trying to filter out specific sites can be an overwhelming tasks, so the schools use a general filter. An idea for technology staff, our school uses a google doc where we can type in sites and links that we want unblocked to use in our classrooms. This may be a way to begin to open the walls and allow our students to learn how to be successful digital citizens later on.
Thank you for your comment. We were just talking about this very idea (“our school uses a google doc where we can type in sites and links that we want unblocked to use in our classrooms”) Our thought was that if our technology department could see the number of teachers who have quality lessons that would be far superior if technology was enabled for us maybe we could get the filters a little less tied down!
I love the phrase “walled gardens.” It is so true that schools seem to block everything, even things we often need. This past year my school blocked Weebly all together. My students and I use Weebly to create websites for the classroom, it was quite the class period when I realized I no longer had access to my lesson for the day. I teach in an inquiry based classroom, my kids are always using the internet to search and unfortunately some really great sites are blocked to them. I’ve put up a good fight, but it seems that my school wont be changing their ways. I completely agree that we are not helping kids learn how to safely navigate the internet if we do all of the “avoiding” for them. However, I do see the flip side of having to contact a parent explaining how their child was able to access an inappropriate site in my classroom. I wonder how we get the parents on board with this concept as well?
Oh, Danielle…I can’t even imagine being in that position and having no notice. You must have been beside yourself. I can totally see both sides of the issue. I just go back to the fact that most children do not have these filters (or supervision) at home and we are not protecting them in the end.