Digital Nation

 This week we watched a click from a PBS documentary, "Digital Nation," which gave some insight on what the future of the digital world may have in store for us. This one part of the documentary took us to an inner city school in the Bronx, where students were performing well below average before each student was given a laptop to help them complete there school work. The students who struggled with reading and math before given a laptop, started to improve drastically. The students knew how to blog and even perform proper research techniques along with improving their test scores while having their own personal laptops. However, their were some distraction due to this new way of approaching teaching. Students began to go on websites or listen to music during class time even though the students were obviously not supposed to do during class time. The school can monitors the websites that the students go on by blocking sites and even by having the principal remotely monitor each students computer via web cam, but  the student still access the sites and music.

As I watched this I thought to my self is this really necessary? These students are young and should have some sites that may be inappropriate to use blocked, but for the principal to have direct access to everyones computer is over the top. I feel like this is crossing the boundary a little bit. Sure the school doesn't want their student playing games while they are supposed to be doing their work, but this could be a breach in privacy. Every young kid gets distracted in class at one point regardless if they have a computer or not. If this school think that these students are old enough and responsible enough to be given a computer, they shouldn't be monitoring them so strictly. As long as the students are doing their work the school should be more lenient towards the students.