By “pull the plug” I mean take a site down if a student posts some content that would pose a liability problem for the school. Let’s take MySpace as an example.

Mr. Jones, a well meaning and technosavvy teacher, decides to utilize MySpace to engage his students in online discussions about his social studies curriculum. He adds all of his students as “buddies” in his MySpace profile and begins posting regularly and soliciting comments from his students on his MySpace blog. Now let’s say that one of his students posts a nasty comment on his own MySpace blog about another student in Mr. Jones’s class. Because neither Mr. Jones or the school district have any ability to remove the offending comment or restrict the offending student’s access to his account, there’s nothing that can be done. And since the offending comment can be traced back to a “school-sponsored” use of the site, I think the school would be putting itself into substantial legal jeopardy. (Standard IANAL disclaimer applies here.)

A better solution would be for the school to find a MySpace-like product that it can put on its own server and could monitor effectively. Then if (when?) something inappropriate happens the school can take action immediately.

I would encourage you to have a listen to my podcast interview with Dr. Scott McLeod from the U. of Minnesota on this and other legal questions. You’ll find it at:

http://technosavvy.org/?p=309

Thanks for listening!

-Tim

Thanks for posting this! Finding lots of great stuff here at NECC.

Have you seen ProfCast? If you haven’t, check it out! It’s not perfect, but it’s a really quick way to get a podcast of a presentation.

-A.J.