Interwebs 101

I came across this article in Mashable earlier today and it got me thinking about parents and children and teaching the internet.

The jist of the article is that Virginia grade schools have instituted a mandatory internet class for their students which teaches them about internet safety, privacy, and other generalities about life on the interwebs. It is designed to help both parents and kids.

The author of the article, Paul Aune, says "I’ve never been a major fan of the concept of 'school as parent' in teaching children what they should really be learning at home, this is one time where it is quite possible the school would know more than a parent" and I can see his point. He goes on to say that "the most effective defense will generally be for parents to get involved in their child’s activities, whether they be online or off," which is generally the answer to everything.

I am really turned off to the idea of offloading parental responsibility onto school systems and think that internet safety issues fall into this category. Parents need to set ground rules. I am reminded of the Howard Rheingold quote that Karen paraphrased in class, "we teach our kids to look both ways before they cross the street and tell them not to talk to strangers and we must teach them rules for Internet use." The constant cry of PSAs are for parents to get involved in the children's lives and to talk about everything from sex, drugs, rock and roll, to the internet and talking to strangers. Be an active participant in your kid's life. duh.

So that seems like the no brainer part of the whole teaching the internet to kids idea. But what about stuff like privacy and protecting your creative work. Can a computer language count as learning a second language? It seems, to me at least, that there is a lot to be hashed out about how we will "teach" the internet to kids. Young people are obviously trailblazing in acceptance of technology, but at what cost/benefit? Shaping a curriculum will be difficult and ever changing (as our big kid classes have shown thus far). Who will be teaching who?

Some of my other worries in regard to the "teaching" of the internet to kids is how one dimensional it will be. Will it just be history and application to business? Will there be a class or even mention of the idiosyncratic cultures that exist? I guess, since I am so interested in strange little niches that have developed on the net, I worry that this stuff will get lost in the shuffle. I find this to be the most interesting stuff out there and I wonder if someday we'll be teaching kids about Anonymous as an example of community mobilization with digital tools. Or if we might someday be teaching kids about 4chan.org (nsfw, nsfl) and how many memes and internet culture phenomena start there and the broader implications for our collective memory or something equally as intelligent sounding.