"It's not about shutting things down"

  Tanya Byron 
  Originally uploaded by Edublogger

Dr Tanya Byron has just said these words at the Media Literacy Summit. It's about having a responsibility for the child's welfare, in a few stages:

• knowing about the issues, about the technologies
• finding out how we can use these safely while not blocking the potential of these tools
• perhaps having a code of conduct to set out the minimum basic requirements

I wasn't sure about a code of conduct. Tanya puts it well: there isn't enough conduct in today's society, so there is a need for the code. I hope that the 'minimum' standards, though, are suitably aspirational.

Comments

[Andrew the great]

I agree with what she has to say. Code of conduct is a good idea!

[John]

hi,
If the code of conduct is for the children publishing, I'd rather set targets for the children to aim for rather than a list of don'ts. (But
I might have the wrong end of the conversation here).

[Neil Winton]

I wonder how all of this will sit with the forthcoming GTCS Professional Conduct survey that begins the consultation process next Monday? Early reports of the recommendations (in this week's TESS) suggest that social networking tools may be frowned on... we'' need to wait and see.

[Ewan McIntosh]

The GTCS proposals are *for review*, and therefore it is vital to enter the discussion. Likewise, I think John's point is where I stand: codes of conduct/guidelines for good student and teacher use - the balance in language needs found.

What we did in East Lothian worked well because it was about doing things better first, with the IT teams working exceptionally hard in terms of training to make sure it was done safer, too. It wasn't called a Code of Conduct for the very reason the language seems very negative. SUpport and guidelines for good practice is a more positive note, and easier to swallow.