Balancing Student Empowerment With Online Safety

Tech Leadership

Providing a safe and engaging learning environment for students is one of the most important roles of a superintendent. The ubiquity of personal technology in our lives today requires we strike a balance between student empowerment and student safety.

Our district in suburban Des Moines, Iowa, the Van Meter Community School District, has provided devices to its students for the past seven years. After enduring the trials and tribulations of determining how much access to allow students, we concluded it is preferable to educate students on appropriate technology use rather than limit their access, as long as we meet all state and federal filter regulations as a safety net.

My suggestions are threefold for education leaders wrestling with this matter.

Start with a purpose.

We began with internal discussions about what web content to block and what to leave open for student access. As author Simon Sinek recommends in his thought-provoking Start With Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action, we asked why it was important for students to access information sites that could be powerful educational resources in some instances and inhibit their learning in other instances.

The answer was simple: The only way students can learn to navigate the digital world appropriately is if we help them along the way. This philosophy of open access directly connected to our vision to empower students to be learners who communicate, collaborate, create and innovate, solve problems, adapt, think globally, live ethically and persist (show grit).

Our students already were accessing sites that we deemed inappropriate, but we wanted to help them understand the dangers associated with poor online decision making. Instead of placing restrictions on the Internet — that our students would spend valuable classroom time trying to find ways around — we facilitated their learning.

Teach for today.

This philosophy of open access directly connects to our school district’s vision for empowering students with 21st-century skills that will allow them to be successful in today’s ever-changing world. Though technology is not required for teaching the 4 C’s — communicate, collaborate, create, critically think — it amplifies the opportunities for students to demonstrate what they know and are able to do.

As district leaders, we need to think about the role technology plays in our students’ lives and how we can harness its power to enhance learning in ways we could never have imagined. Rather than trying to keep technology out of students’ hands, it’s time we find ways to include more digital tools in our districts to support higher levels of thinking.

Embracing mistakes.

It’s inevitable that students will make mistakes with technology. But students make mistakes in other areas of life as well. How we respond to these mistakes as education leaders will help determine the kind of adults our students will become.

I believe most people rise to the level of expectations placed upon them. If we establish rules and regulations that inhibit the use of technology in our schools, we are demonstrating to our students that we don’t trust them to make good decisions. Not only is this bad for our school culture, it is detrimental to student development. Kids need to have the opportunity to fail so they can learn from their mistakes. What better environment than school to help them learn and grow?

Our district believes technology is a key component to enacting our vision for student learning in a culture of trust. As you consider how much technology access to grant your students, think about the vision, type of student learning and district culture you want to promote and ask yourself an important question: “Would you want to go to school in your district?”