John Finch- Surprising Statistics

Yesterday we had the pleasure of having John Finch in our Internet for Educators class, this time in the flesh. Although I think having people skype in from different places in the world, I kind of like having an actual person in the class. There are less glitches, and I feel like it can be more of a discussion. None the less I still enjoy hearing from people who cannot physically be in our class because without technology we might not ever be able to gain from their knowledge. (Hmm think about that and all that has been discussed in previous posts)
With the other two presenters we have had in the class, they have been telling us to connect, connect, connect. But John Finch made us take a step back and think about the implications and the legal standpoint of everything we post online. And frankly he scared me a little (or a lot!). It was discussed that every division needs to have a social media policy and that it is actually harder to post a picture of a child's great work on a unit or a project you made up yourself. You as a teacher and a school need to have written permission just to post it, because it technically is the child's property. This got me thinking... When I first thought about posting resources and ideas online I just thought I would post them, but it really isn't that simple. As a teacher who wants to incorporate technology into their future classroom we will have to do some work beforehand just to make sure you have covered all your bases. Although you may not think you are doing anything wrong, you very well could be and it could cost you lots of money or worse case it could mean losing your career. This in turn doesn't just apply to technology used for education, it applies to everyday use of your computer and pictures and downloading music. We all just press "I agree" under the terms and conditions but I think we should take a second look before we agree, just in case.
Another topic John Finch talked about was cyber bullying. Before sitting down and talking with John I thought cyber bullying was a huge issue (and don't get me wrong it is) We have talked about it in other classes that I have taken and in those classes it was brought up as quite the up and coming issue. But John mentioned that if we look at statistics, only 8 to 12 percent of students who were/are bullied say its done by cyber bullying. Most bullying is still physical/verbal/social and emotional bullying. This I found interesting. A great example that the media portrayed as cyber bullying was the Amanda Todd case (if you are reading this and don't know what I am talking about, do some research) in actual fact it was more a case of blackmail if you look deeper into the issue. So we still have to look at cyber bullying as an issue but its not the biggest issue out there for us up and coming teachers, bullying in any form is. We need to be educated on the facts about bullying (like how cyber bullying only happens to 8-12 percent of people) and we then need to educate the generation that we are teaching so they know how it affects people and how we can end the vicious cycle. As I mentioned before this was very interesting to me and got me thinking about cyber bullying and verbal/physical bullying and how bad it really is, so I have decided to do some reading up on it and I'll get back to you in another post when I have gathered some thoughts and opinions on it.
The discussion with John Finch was eye opening. He brought up great topics that I think should always be talked about. As much as we should connect, and share our knowledge about the good things we come across as educators, we should also share knowledge on the "scary" topics that are real issues in our schools today.

-LB
"The fountain of information lies at your fingertips and is accessible anywhere at anytime and schools need to emphasize this. We are no longer in a world where you need to go seek enlightenment, it is everywhere"- Christopher Myers