Ballyhaunis Community school are to ban all pupils from bringing mobile phones or any recording devices into the school from April 20th. This is apparently as a result of a couple of incidents of photos and videos from he school being put on Bebo and Youtube. A teacher was photographed without their knowledge and the pictures posted on Bebo. There was also an incident of two girls fighting outside the school entrance which was videoed on a phone and posted on Youtube.
Ballyhaunis School was one of just 2 mentioned in an article on social networking sites in the Irish Independent last week. I wonder why a Dublin based newspaper chose Ballyhaunis as an example?
According to an article in the Irish Independent “In Ballyhaunis Community School, Co Mayo, students are taught to show caution on social networking sites.”
The article goes on ….. “Principal Pat McHugh says, for modern teenagers social networking sites are just another aspect of daily life.”
A quote from Mr McHugh “As one parent said, these sites are the pen-pal situation of the 21st century. For 98pc of the pages, they are totally harmless, they are teenagers contacting other teenagers. The danger I see is young people tend to be very trusting and I would be afraid they would be lured into something unsavoury by unscrupulous people.”
On changes in pupil behaviour since the arrival of Bebo Mr McHugh said…
“I don’t think there’s any difference. Bullying was happening 25 years ago when I started teaching. I don’t think these sites are inherently bad, but they can be abused. ”
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