To Bebo or not to Bebo?
Over the last few days I have been doing a little research on how familiar the kids here are with some of the web2.0 sites including bebo. (Felt a little like playing with Pandora’s box!) Hardly any of our kids had come across bebo, none flickr, no one could tell me what a wiki was (although some wondered if it was related to hickies). I did find this encouraging in some measure. Today I took the brave step of showing the kids bebo, and using the site as an aide to discus online safety (S4 5 and 6 pupils). I think the message got there for most. I took one individual from the bebo home page, and using only directory enquiries and 192.com was able to tell the kids her parents name, what they did for a living, her home phone number, and a map of her house. She also very kindly included a picture of herself to complete the package. You could see the shock on their faces. I just hope that the message sinks in, and that when they do (as they will) start to explore web 2.0 they do so forewarned about the risks of including too much personal info. The young lady on bebo - all she gave was her surname and her town. That was all it took.
Really interesting stuff. I was surprised that none knew of Bebo when 100% of kids I know have MSNSpaces - maybe it’s down to branding, maybe it’s down to the word of mouth in the school itself that leads to a whole class or school getting connected after hours on such a network.
I think your bold step will push the point home. Are you following this up with parents, too, so that they are in the know?
I’m impressed with the parent’s occupation bit - I’m guessing you got this from the electoral roll section of 192.com? (It costs money to access this on 192.com so I’m asking rater than checking myself.
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First time I fired up Bebo (after hearing Ewan talk about it) I saw a bundle of kids from my wife’s school featured on the opening page. Bright kids, but doing some dumb things! Do you think teenagers see Bebo as an extension of something like MSN Chat and imagine that it is a closed, relatively private space? …Or are they just not thinking through the implications - an occupational hazzard of being a teenager?
I’d say that they feel anonymous, in a group of friends, all helped along by the localisation Bebo provides in its groupings of teenagers. Struan - what are your kids saying?
This is very intersting Struan - what a great way to teach web safety. I am alo supprised that your pupils had not heard of Bebo. I know of a number of schools that have been having a few problems with this site. Keep up the great work.
One of the students involved in blogging her Creative Writing told me the other day that she and her friends were meeting with attempts at bullying on bebo - just as with MSN and texting.
She reckoned any form of communication could end up being abused if dopes were using it.
I am not particularly computer literate and was horrified to discover that my son was recieving graffic totally unsuitable information via other kids in his school.I consider this site unsuitable for under age 18 due to the obvious risk to kids/teenagers interfacing with unsupervised/uncensored material or individuals of a profoundly inappropriate nature.I know its down to parental supervision in many cases,but some help would be nice!After all society at large will suffer the consequences of profit driven ill thoughtout schemes that have not[ in this case ]been properly managed.It’s a pity lots about the site is a great idea.
[...] In the region where I work web filtering is done at a school level. Having spoken to colleagues in other regions I see this as a real strength. Today, an email was sent to the conference for ICT coordinators suggesting a site to block with the reasons for doing so. You guessed it! Bebo! Given the recent debate here and elsewhere in blogosphere, and that the region had sent me to an in-service event highlighting the benefits of Web 2.0, I thought it only fair to revisit the debate about what to block and what not to block. I was also interested to note that today Fiona posted a comment to the original post To bebo or not to bebo backing up the case for blocking the site in schools. (PS: No new students at my school on Bebo) [...]
[...] Having known about it for a long time I finally got around to signing up to bebo. I’m not sure why, it seems like it’s just another distraction, flickr seems better fun to me. Oh well, I suppose it’s a bit of ‘professional development’… [...]