Should schools allow teachers to use outside technology tools?
I d like to kick off my guest blogging by raising again an issue I once blogged about long ago. Many educational technology advocates have been blogging about the need to enable teacher and student use of Web 2.0 tools for example, see these recent posts by Wesley Fryer, David Warlick, Susan Brooks-Young, and Jeff Utecht. While I agree with them, I also want to highlight the essential conundrum that school administrators face: there are rarely ways in which school organizations can effectively monitor the use of many of these tools. As I said in my long-ago post Schools and districts are required, both legally and professionally / ethically / morally, to monitor employee and student use of technology tools when those tools are used for professional or instructional purposes. School organizations that don’t must face the legal and public relations ramifications of ignoring potential employee / student abuse of digital technologies. No school system wants to be sued and/or highlighted in
