Safe Mistakes: A case for email in school

Doug Johnson at Blue Skunk Blog highlights a good example of the importance of teaching students responsible use of the internet, rather than steering clear of it. A case that arose in his district out of the use of school-sponsored email provided a meaningful teaching opportunity.

“It is because of incidents like this that I am glad we have always given our students school sponsored e-mail addresses. It allows kids to make “safe mistakes.” The girl and probably her classmates got a real-life lesson in protecting one’s password and about identity theft without anyone getting hurt.”

Read the full article on his blog.

Student communication tools are a frightening topic to cover in school, but where will our students learn responsible use otherwise?

In case you’re interested, email is first introduced in the Ohio Tech Content Standards at 2nd grade.

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