Should schools be footing the bill for our online time?

Sure! Why not?!… Heck no! Wasting taxpayers money!

Well is it really that simple? If I write a blog post during school hours, which I would say many people do, then who’s paying for my time and who’s benefitting from my blogging?

I suppose this reaches beyond just the blogosphere into most online personal social networking spaces. As technology in the classrooms becomes ubiquitous we are redefining our ‘average day’ to embed more and more creation and consumption of knowledge online. But is it all for work purposes? Should it be? Are online environments replacing the conversational chatter of the staff room, cause they most definitely aren’t all educational.

A couple of years ago the IT manager at my school sent out a usage stats list for Facebook’s website ranked in order of the number of hours it was opened on the end users computer… 3 of the top ten in that list were teaching staff (including number 1!). This may have been legitimate use for educational purposes… or it may not, who’s to know?

Should schools be monitoring this sort of behaviour and getting staff to justify their virtual timetables or should they embrace the collaboration that may stem from our meanderings through cyberspace? Tell me what you think…