Transcript:
Maria: Hello and welcome to Talon Marks podcast. My name is Maria Lopez and I will be the moderator for today and we are talking about the pros and cons of schools monitoring their students. Could you please introduce your selves?
Abraham: Hello I’m Abraham Dayfallah and I am a photography major, and I am also working with Talon Marks.
Solmayra: Hello my name is Solmayra Mendez and I also am working with Talon Marks and my major is journalism.
Maria: OK, so what we are going to talk about today are student monitoring either by computers or by social media. What do you guys think? Should schools monitor students on social medias?
Solmayra: I think they shouldn’t. Who wants to be monitored in school all the time? It’s strange.
Abraham: Yeah, if someone has a particular something they want to share with the public via Twitter, via social network, I think its their right to keep it private between them and their friends rather than them the teachers and the faculty.
Maria: Strange? What would you define as strange? Why would you think that would be strange?
Solmayra: Well, I mean first of all, if anyone should be monitoring you, you would think your parents or something, not some strangers at school. Besides, even if you are doing something its not like…I mean, the most you will probably get in trouble is like…I don’t know, probably get kicked out of school if you were looking at something really inappropriate. But other than that, I mean…other than that, telling you to stop, that’s it. So what’s the point?
Maria: Other than being outside of school and being monitored, do you think that the computers in schools should be monitored?
Abraham: I don’t think that the computers that we use on campus should be monitored at all because we don’t know what they are going to use it for. If they are going to use it with us or against us, it should be used for our own rights and our own privacies.
Solmayra: You also said that you saw in the library that people in the library look at what you were looking at. Was it on one computer or multiple computers?
Abraham: As i was walking into the computer lab to check my classes one day, behind the staff counter there was a PowerPoint type slide that was on a computer screen of a staff that was showing everyone’s screens, and it just narrows down on who is using it for what and if they are using it for a school purpose or not.
Maria: In terms of privacy, do you value privacy? Does it seem important to you and if the school monitors your privacy, do you see that as a violation?
Solmayra: I mean, to anyone privacy is really important. You don’t want other people looking at, not just at what you can be doing on the Internet. But like, if you are doing something that you don’t want someone else to be seeing, they shouldn’t have the right to come in and say stop doing that. They aren’t the ones doing that. It’s your responsibility if you are doing something like dangerous or something or whatever it is that you are doing. I really don’t think anyone should be coming into your personal business unless you are doing something illegal. Then by all means, everyone come and tell you to stop.
Maria: And what are your thoughts Abraham?
Abraham: My thoughts would be I am a very private person and so I do value privacy as one of my high priorities, not because of something that I’m doing wrong is shady or sketchy, but my words that I don’t want to get out there to the public to not want to be stopped for something like if I am writing something personal to someone I love or a friend and I am just goofing around informally. I don’t want other people to get the wrong idea about me. That should just be left up to me because I am an adult going to college.
Solmayra: That’s true, too. You are an adult when you are in college already. You should know the difference between right and wrong.
Maria: Well, this was our podcast: monitoring students on social media. Thank you for stopping by. Thank you, Solmayra and thank you, Abraham.
Abraham: No problem.
