Re: WebLabs Instant Messaging - A bad thing?

I agree we have an issue here.  For the last two weeks I have been 
swamped with messages from kids (including quite a few from Ken's). Many 
of them were "social chit-chat", the "hi, how are you, what's the 
weather where you are?" type. On the other hand, I have had a wondrous 
thread of interaction with the Bulgarian kids, who have been using the 
messaging feature to pose and respond to sequence challenges (playing 
"guess the robot").

So, I think that in the end of the day, its not the tool that matters, 
but the culture we foster around it. If we introduce this tool in the 
context of social activity, that's where it will remain. If we use it 
for learning and discussing mathematical ideas, then it will serve those 
purposes. When we first introduced long distance birds last year, we did 
it in the context of sending text messages between kids. We paid the 
price for a very long time: every session, kids would want to exchange 
birds and spend the whole hour chatting. Pretty soon we started using 
this as a "treat"; if you behave nicely, we'll let you play with birds 
for the last 5 minutes of the session.

Another related issue id the kid's home pages. I think we do want kids 
to have some sort of personal identity on the system. However, some kids 
have gone to great trouble to create elaborate temples for their media 
idols (well, I'm exaggerating a bit, but I think you know what I mean).

I think in all cases, its up to us to set the norms. Just as a teacher 
defines what qualifies as legitimate discourse in class, we have to 
define the boundaries on-line. Would you accept it if someone met your 
10 year old daughter on the playground, and before he knew her name, 
asked her if she has a boyfriend?

We had a similar situation with our kids last year. One very nice girl 
used unbelievable foul language on her Wiki page. Language she would 
never have used in regular social interaction. That was the first and 
last time I stepped in, and used my power to edit her page. I also 
brought it up in our next session, and simply asked: is the the image 
you want others to have of you? it never happened again.

As for security, there is a separate email thread on this issue, and 
Jesper is focusing all his efforts on it these days. In a nutshell, 
there should be no unverified users in the system, every user must be 
affiliated with a school, and that school has an adult administrator. 
So, if someone sends a nasty message to one of your kids, you know who 
to call (exactly the same as when some kids makes a nasty remark at 
yours in the school playground).

My last remark is that I do not see this issue as so serious.  From our 
experience last year, the novelty of these social games wares off 
quickly. Although I found some of the interaction with kids this week 
distracting and futile, I'm sure that if I don't actively encourage it, 
the volume will go down to a minimum in a matter of days.  I have made 
it my habit, when asked about the weather, to ask back about robots and 
sequences.

best,

- Yishay

Ken Kahn wrote:

>Today the teacher I'm working with panicked and asked the kids to stop
>using the web site. The trigger was that the girls were getting instant
>messages from Bulgarian boys asking them if they had boy friends. The
>Theydon Bois boys were getting messages from Bulgaria saying that they
>thought the girls were cute. Friendly stuff but the teacher worried that
>some parent might get very upset about such interchanges.
>
>Afterwards we met with the head of the school. She thought the teacher
>overreacted but suggested that the kids should be made to understand
>that the instant messaging if for work-related purposes. Polite
>exchanging of pleasantries is OK (e.g. how's the weather  - and there
>were such messages) but talk about boy friends or pop bands shouldn't be
>permitted. Sounds reasonable to me - though it does need to be enforced
>by me.
>
>I think I would be happier if instant messaging didn't exist - it is
>taking up much too much time and hard to control. I find it hard to tell
>kids that they can't look at messages they've received. Most messages
>are friendly ones saying hi and how's the weather. It seems only polite
>for the kids to reply. And they are eager to do so. But there goes much
>of the session.
>
>On top of all this are the security issues - how do I know they really
>were Bulgarian kids?
>
>Another security issue is passwords. The kids use such easy passwords
>that they can even crack each others accounts. Both girls used names of
>pets. One boy quickly guessed correctly his friend's password when he
>saw it was 5 letters. It was "Homer".
>
>Maybe we should focus on reports where these issue don't exist or are
>minimal.
>
>Best,
>
>-ken
>
>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "." <jesperh-auIyqT/[email protected]>
>To: <webreports-uedesign-5NWGOfrQmneRv+LV9MX5uipxlwaOVQ5f@public.gmane.org>
>Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 11:10 AM
>Subject: Re: [Webreports-uedesign] Web reports site "Security" issues
>
>
>  
>
>>* On Thu Jan 22, Yishay Mor wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Jesper, I think we need to deal with the security issue ASAP, or
>>>      
>>>
>else we
>  
>
>>>might find ourselves in a very unpleasant situation.
>>>      
>>>
>>Yes, I agree. I will put other tasks aside for a while and concentrate
>>    
>>
>on
>  
>
>>this issue. Some of the proposed changes might be quite tricky to
>>implement, but it needs to be done.
>>
>>Jesper
>>
>>
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>>
>>    
>>
>
>
>
>
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>  
>

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Yishay Mor
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