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2.0 is an intellectual freedom issue
October 5, 2008
Back in 1978, Susie Orbach redefined
fat as a feminist issue. That definition helped many of us better understand the politics of weight and gender.
We need to see another truth: 2.0 is an intellectual freedom issue.
Intellectual freedom is the right of every individual to both seek and receive information from all points of view without restriction. It provides for free access to all expressions of ideas through which any and all sides of a question, cause or movement may be explored.
Intellectual Freedom and Censorship Q & A
As I travel from one state conference to the next, I am discovering that the relatively liberal situation in my own school is not the case for learners everywhere. The daily discoveries I discover in my own library sandbox, and blog about in this space, are not part of many other library sandboxes.
At every single presentation I do, librarians tell me,
we can't do anything like that in our district.
Learners everywhere need--no deserve--access to the information and communication tools of today's world. They don't have it.
2.0 is an intellectual freedom issue.
2.0 is an equity issue.
2.0 is a librarians' issue.
While most of us out there in the trenches will fight to keep
important books on our shelves, protecting the rights of our whole learning communities to read, many of us are not fighting the same good fight in other areas of our practice.
We are not fighting for students' rights to create and collaborate on share new knowledge through new media. We are not fighting for learners' rights to read in a world where reading formats include wikis and blogs and personal learning networks.
I don't blame the administrators. These tools are new and largely untested and frightening to those who have never used them.
I blame our profession. While we wait for acceptance of these new tools, learners graduate and lose opportunities to connect the tools they use for play in powerful new ways, ways that might improve their contributions to our world.
We stop at
no when our districts or tech directors or network administrators summarily or arbitrarily ban blogs and wikis and social networking and media sharing and yes, even digital storytelling.
We need to get to
yes, for the sake of millions of learners. It is up to us to make the pedagogical arguments, the equity arguments.
When we find one option is blocked, are we seeking solid, solid unblocked options to use as proof of concept? Have we energetically demonstrated the levels of privacy that come with so many of these new tools? Are we researching, archiving, and sharing examples of effective practice when it comes to 2.0 use? Are we questioning arbitrary policy decisions with energy?
We are at the beginning of a movement and this is one that teacher-librarians must lead. Perhaps we are arriving a little late, but we can make up for lost time.
2.0 is an equity issue.
2.0 is an intellectual freedom issue
Now, you may feel alone initially as you begin the good fight, but remember Alice's restaurant?
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an
organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day,I said
fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and
walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.
And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and
all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the
guitar.
It's time to start singing.
For a few more song ideas, visit:
Posted by Joyce Valenza on October 5, 2008 | Comments (7)
