Kathryn Whitehouse

Luhtala, M., Svec, D. (2012). A tale of two students. Why acceptable use policies make such a difference. American Libraries 41, ⅞. p.48.

     Luthala and Svec provide an A/B comparison of the high school experience for a student who benefits from a school with a progressive policy of open access to wifi and internet based content, and a school that bans devices and imposes significant firewalls that deprive students and educators of utilizing social media, blogging and micro blogging, video and photo uploading, and collaborative projects. Not only is there no investment in tools tailored for educational settings, even free tools such as Skype, Google+, Facebook, and Twitter are forbidden. So what is the result? The savvy student has received an education in digital citizenship, is practiced in information seeking and gathering tools utilized in the real world and at universities, and has created a responsible digital persona. The other student, deprived of all access, is at considerable disadvantage in the college admissions process, and is less equipped to be an effective and independent seeker of information in college and in the job market.

     The authors say “access to learning is an intellectual freedom issue, and many schools are denying students access to critical modern day learning tools.” I would clarify or even expand that point and say this lack of access represents inequitable access to basic information. To me, it is no different from offering library books that are useless, dirty, inaccurate, superseded, and irrelevant to the curriculum while not investing in new titles. 

     Sadly, both circumstances are chronically evident in my children's school district. If you have experience in successfully convincing your IT administrators that your post graduate degrees in information science does in fact qualify you to determine what level of internet access you can administer on behalf of your students, I would enjoy reading of your success could learn from you.