What Does Internet Blocking Suggest to Students?

Steve J. Moore

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 2:53 pm

 

In the worst-case scenarios, school computers are merely expensive paper weights. What can teachers, whose hands are tied by policy, do to convince administration to trust teachers and students? Maybe it’s community members that need convincing too, what can teachers tell parents about the “risks” involved with the internet?

Deb Hanson

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 3:38 pm

 

I continue to be told that we must block and filter school Internet sites as long as we receive federal funding (a requirement of the Child Internet Protection Act). Until we get that law reversed or give up federal finding (not likely these days) we are stuck with the policy. I agree with you that we need to trust teachers and kids and indeed empower them to use Web 2.0 tools for learning and communicating. I ask the questions and push the limits at every turn these days…and I feel very alone in my efforts. Maybe Steve is right – we need to reach out to the community/parents, too in order to create the change.

Steve J. Moore

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 3:56 pm

 

Some schools argue FERPA as well, but I’ve read the document and it really doesn’t apply to information outside of grades/health/records, etc.

I hope I’m not being unfair, but it seems like many districts are trying to hide behind these things because this is a complex issue to deal with. It’s expensive in many different ways and it poses new risks that schools are only now beginning to understand.

As a techie myself, I try to be very patient with my school’s sysadmin people, they work hard, but their first job is to follow the rules NOT to help teachers. It’s the principal’s job to help teachers.

I think if we, as teachers, try to do more useful suggesting and less harmful complaining (”how am I supposed to do anything!!!?”) then we will be able to forge a tech-smart school. It takes more than one person though.

Shelly Blake-Plock

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 3:56 pm

 

Hi Steve and Deb,

Thanks for the comments.

Concerning engaging with parents about Web 2.0, I completely agree. Here are a couple posts from teachpaperless.com where I spoke directly to that issue:

http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2009/05/dont-be-afraid-to-talk-openly-to-your.html

http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2009/05/dont-block-educate.html

- Shelly

Tom Taylor

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 4:12 pm

 

I’m one of the blockers, and in our district these decisions are not made lightly. We have to employ filtering per CIPA, but we have some flexibility. Several of us from different levels review requests for both blocking and unblocking. Since I come from a classroom and not a technical background, I tend to be more liberal when it comes to filtering requests.

One thing to keep in mind – some decisions are not a matter of censorship at all, but a matter of choices based on limited resources. I would have no problem philosophically with unblocking YouTube. However, if I did that we wouldn’t have bandwidth for anything else. I will work with teachers to plan ahead and let me know which specific videos they need, or show them how to download the videos locally.

Joe Corbett

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 4:19 pm

 

@Tom, limited resources are certainly another angle we need to be considering. Broadband is great when you are at home with one computer pulling data, but it’s obviously a completely different story when you are trying to serve 200-2000 users at peak hours. Thanks for that insight.

Steve J. Moore

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 4:55 pm

 

@Tom

I always try to reassure other teachers of just what you said about censorship. Logistics has more to do with certain decisions.

Your school is lucky to have you! :)

Vincent Lowe

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 5:12 pm

 

…bravo! Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Students will eventually find out the truth. What will they think of us (parents and educators) when they find out?

Check out the cultural upheaval of the ’60s for an example.

Wes Fryer

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 5:44 pm

 

Your points are well made, Shelly, and I concur. We should not shake our fingers at the Chinese government and turn a blind eye to the draconian and excessive content filtering which is enforced in MANY of our schools. In the fall of 2007 I had an opportunity to compare the levels of censorship and content filtering between one of our Oklahoma public schools and the Chinese government at our hotel in Shanghai. I wrote about this in the posts, “Content filtering in Communist China versus an Oklahoma school” and “Content Filtering in Schools: Striving to CONTROL user behavior.”

You mentioned CIPA and flexibility, Tom, and that is a BIG point. CIPA requires schools and libraries which receive E-Rate funding to have a filtering policy, filter porn at a minimum, and enforce their policy. It does NOT require that schools block specific sites like YouTube or social networking sites. In many, many schools, content filtering has taken on a role CIPA does not mandate: Trying to keep students “on task” and away from distracting websites, like Facebook. Yes, there are security concerns which come up from social networking sites, but there are ways to address those issues besides draconian blocking.

I started the wiki project “Unmasking the Digital Truth” several months ago to try and address the array of legal acronyms which some school officials DO hide behind when it comes to content filtering. In the United States we live in a litigious society, and unfortunately fear of lawsuits DOES drive behavior in many school districts. Our kids went to a school in Texas in which district officials had literally taken down all the playground equipment because of the fear of parent lawsuits. Rather than provide swings and monkey bars for elementary recess, the kids were turned loose to play in the grass and dirt. How nice it was to come to an Oklahoma public school which had lots of playground equipment! Liability fears are sometimes carried to an extreme, and we see this in the arena of content filtering just as we do in other areas, like playground equipment.

Jody Klopp

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 5:57 pm

 

Wes, I’m also an Oklahoma teacher and I am interested in your Unmasking the Digital Truth wiki. The link didn’t get me to that site.
Do you know of a group of OK teachers who are trying to go through appropriate channels to work for opening/freeing schools to allow Web 2.0?

Do we need to help an OK legislator write legislation for free access? Or perhaps teachers should inundate administrators with the URLs that we want our students to be able to access? Perhaps that would push admins to be more flexible?

Justin K. Reeve

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 6:21 pm

 

I’m one of those “district blockers” too. Every now and then I come across something during the normal workday and instantly have it blocked. It doesn’t give me any pleasure to do so in many of the situations, when the tool is clearly useful for educational purposes, but our state has some rather quirky (and I’d argue outdated) laws that pertain to child safety.

Keep this in mind, though — it’ll probably be less than 5 years from now that school filters will be absolutely useless, because we’ll see cell phones become more advanced and more prevalent that they’ll rival any Internet-enabled computer, and I’d wager even become the preferred method of Internet browsing for many students.

Every student will have their own data plan on their cell phone that isn’t constrained by the school filter. So even if they do use a school’s computer lab, if they find a site that’s blocked, it’s just a matter of whipping out their cell phone and loading the blocked site. How are schools going to address this? They can either outright ban cell phones (which as we’ve seen has only successfully driven them underground), or start teaching children proper and responsible Internet usage. I’d like to see more of the latter happening.

Shelly Blake-Plock

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 6:21 pm

 

Hi Tom, I hear you on logistics and bandwidth.

I’ve got a great tech team at school and they are always talking about bandwidth issues.

That gets to the heart of the problem, though. We have systems that aren’t made to handle Web 2.0 let alone whatever comes down the pike next.

The lack of policy work to rectify that issue coupled by the perception in the eyes of many a student and teacher as to the attitudes of higher-ups concerning Web 2.0 content anyway seems to telegraph the idea that social media is by-and-large being kept off the table .

Poor infrastructure isn’t an excuse, it’s a method of control. It’s a lot easier to limit movement when you can blame the hole in the road. And it’s a lot easier to pawn off tech infrastructure problems onto local tech departments like you guys than it is to deal with the fact that technology is demanding that we re-evaluate how we spend our resources at the top of the food chain.

And that brings us back to the issue at hand. In the current climate, how many decision makers are going to decide to spend the money on social media? It’s a lot cheaper — and less of a headache — to just block it.

Whether you call it censorship or political expedience, it amounts to the same thing: a disaffected generation of kids getting shafted out of an authentic 21st century education.

concretekax

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 6:59 pm

 

This article brings back memories to me of teaching English in China in 1999 during the ten year anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre. If you remember NATO accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslovia based on info. from the CIA.

This trajedy was a wonderful opportunity for the Communist Party propoganda machine to distract the people from the anniversary by turning their anger against the U.S. Universtiy students were brought to the consulates around China to protest and then it was shown on the evening news as they announced the bombing to the Chinese people.

I agree with Shelly and Wes that schools are hiding behind CIPA because of fear. I am happy that my district has unblocked most social media websites for teachers, but they are still blocked for students making them difficult apply in the classroom. I did an experiment with my students this week. I made a list of 40 websites I would like to use and we “tested” the filter to see which ones are blocked. Students could only access 15 of them. Useful tools such as twitter, skype, pixton,voicethread, diigo, and animoto were all blocked. This summer I will be asking my tech. dept. to unblock many of them.

Teachers have to continue to push the limits with their tech. people and their administrators. Students deserve no less!

Ben Knaus

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 7:12 pm

 

Alright, first, teachers can educate students. I’ve educated my 7th & 8th graders on what is appropriate to use on the web in my classroom. I’ve had less than 5 problems with that this year. Mostly the same student.

Second, another Twitter discussion in happening about grading. A post stated that students will complete work if it is engaging. Engagement reduces off task behavior. In technology, less off task behavior means fewer problem websites.

Third, lets have schools and districts save money. Bring the cell phones into education. Faster connections, less blocking, and pretty much zero involvement from the IT people. Where is the down side to this? The occasional off task text message? I know that off-task emails/messages/surfing happens all the time in the real world. (Mostly because the meetings/events are not engaging, see #2 above).

In conclusion, give students the access, teach them responsible use, make engaging learning (for students and adults) and watch the learning take off.

Tom

Thursday, 4th June 2009 at 7:29 pm

 

I understand that lack of resources shouldn’t be an excuse, but it must be a consideration.

I agree with Wes that the point will be moot in the not too distant future. Our state is considering statewide broadband. I can’t help but wonder what restrictions they will put on it in terms of filtering. Will they allow unrestricted access in schools? As conservative as our state is, I can foresee problems if this ever becomes a reality.

Educational CyberPlayGround

Friday, 5th June 2009 at 5:56 am

 

currently located in shanghai i can tell you that the net sites are always blocked and starting june 2nd it started big time.
most people do not have any clue how to get under the ( twitter #GCF ) great china firewall and never heard of the tianamen sq. or realize they have a human rights problem. And most US citizens are unaware that is was the american companies that sold them the censorship software.

[...] This post was Twitted by AffiliateRupes – Real-url.org [...]

Deb Hanson

Friday, 5th June 2009 at 3:31 pm

 

Ben K – I couldn’t have said it better! I’m with you there… and for the IT folks out there…I live with one of those great IT folks – in fact we work together at the same school, so I am always pushing his buttons to get more access, but he is tied to District policy and filters as well… at least we’ve gotten the conversations to expand to others around the District… I would love to see the day when we allow cell phones and other devices to be used in classrooms where we can teach the responsible way to use them and engage kids with the tools they already have at hand…

Steve J. Moore

Friday, 5th June 2009 at 4:06 pm

 

Wow, this is a fantastic discussion. I just wanted to say thank you to Shelly for writing this piece and stirring up this great conversation!

Anthony Della Rosa

Sunday, 7th June 2009 at 6:31 pm

 

I understand the need to block per CIPA compliance but that needs to be amended. I believe children 13 and over should be allowed the web with little or no restrictions. The problem is then we have to police what they do and teach them how to be socially responsible. Things haven’t changed only the medium has. 3 years ago we taught students social responsibility but the Internet didn’t exist. You didn’t just go to school to learn how to read and write but how to act and behave and become an adult. Somewhere along the line that changed in and that why now we just block stuff, instead of teaching them responsibility, acceptable behavior and appropriateness. What will they do when they get to college or the real world???

David Andrade

Monday, 8th June 2009 at 8:17 am

 

I think that we need to block certain websites to prevent accidental exposure (such as porn) but we really need to teach students how to use the internet safely. My district blocks many sites that other schools use in the classroom, such as Ning, Twitter, and others. They also block any site that is considered “shopping” which means that many educational sites are blocked.

I have often suggested that incoming high school freshman need a mini-academy on note taking, studying, time management, computer usage, and how to survive high school. Part of that can be how to use the internet safely.

Yes, some websites should be blocked. But, we block way too many useful sites that we should have access to.

Ben K.

Monday, 8th June 2009 at 7:40 pm

 

I know that CIPA requires an age limit of 13. In turn, many web tools have adopted that, including google docs and twitter.

I teach 7th and 8th grade. Next year, I’ll add 6th grade. The majority of the 8th graders are 13. There isn’t a big difference, Internetly speaking, between the grade levels.

Teaching students about internet safety and responsible use should start in kindergarten. I teach it to my students on a daily basis. it’s embedded in my instruction.

If I ran the school, I’d block some obvious sites that have not place in society, let alone classrooms. However, I have no problem leaving things unblocked as long as they are being used responsibly.

I think that is the real problem. Too many teachers, none of them here, are talking to students about being responsible and that is where we run into problems.

Mick Sharpe

Tuesday, 9th June 2009 at 4:07 pm

 

A great discussion: Now, here is some socio-philosophic cognitive dissidence for you.

I am a left-leaning, Noam Chomsky-loving, anti-authority, open-network zealot. I am also one of the “Internet KGB”, as an executive at Netsweeper, am Internet filtering developer. This debate is a once-per month item for most of you. This debate is a 5-a-day “core-of-my-existence” item for me. So, here are two, well-practiced points:

First, adults moderate the ‘inputs’ available to inexperienced, unprepared youth. Internet filtering is little different than any other mechanism for social moderation relative to age. Like sexually-explicit movies, drinking alcohol, driving a car, wear car seat belts or gun ownership; most people will eventually experience (know) most of this “adult content”. Does that mean I want my 11-year-old daughter to experience these? Or to experience two, three or four of these at once, with no adult ‘filter’ to provide context. No, I don’t.

I drive a motor vehicle and I believe sex is a wonderful gift shared by two adults. In my holy book, Jesus Christ revived a flagging wedding reception by turning water into wine. Ergo, I guess most Christians would agree with me that wine is a good thing. But I did not encourage or allow under-age driving, sexual activity and/or alcohol consumption by my children at 6, 10 or 14-years-old? And I consider the reasons inherently valid.

Secondly, Internet access management is a process of calculated “risk management”. I too hate that part of the equation, but it is an integral part of the litigious world we live in. Let us suppose 98% of young people will show a perfect mix of adventurous curiosity tempered with a dash of life-saving caution vis-à-vis the Internet. Further, let us agree that 98% of teachers and other authority figures show completely appropriate responsibility in this arena.

The simple arithmetic indicates that in the school environment, approximately 800,000 young people and 100,000 adults will not show appropriate caution or responsibility. The school district executives and community authorities are liable for the safety of these children. They have a specific and court-recognized responsibility. Internet access management does not guarantee all this risk is eliminated. But “info-highway safety” is like automobile highway safety. Fewer people are injured if we insist that drivers are of a certain age; learn the rules of the road and wearing seat belts. Once you reach 18 and are driving your own car, you are on your own.

In summary, when addressing this issue in public, I have distilled Internet safety down to the following formula:
• 1st is always parental guidance and over-sight;
• 2nd is always teachers, coaches and other responsible adults as “maturation pathfinders”;
• 3rd is local school authorities;
• 4th is “big brother” state and federal government sanctions, supported by some mechanism.

At this moment, Internet filtering is the best mechanism. I immediately grant that it is imperfect, inconvenient and intrusive. As are stops lights, car seat belts and bicycle helmets. I just prefer our kids to reach adulthood with as few scares as possible.

Mick Sharpe
Director, Business Development
Netsweeper, Inc.
mick.sharpe@netsweeper.com

Dean Loberg

Tuesday, 9th June 2009 at 11:58 pm

 

Mike, you make a great point and have obviously thought about this very thoroughly and discussed it often. I think the point that gets lost in your argument is that no one here is talking about opening up the flood gates to the underside of the internet. No one, to use your analogy, is talking about putting 6 year olds in cars with guns, alcohol and dirty magazines. They are talking about ‘drivers ed’. The sites that are mostly harmless but can not be guaranteed because of the social aspect. Yes there is some risk in a drivers ed program but without it the long term risk is much greater.

Shelly Blake-Plock

Wednesday, 10th June 2009 at 8:54 am

 

Mick,

Thanks for posting such a thoughtful comment. One of the fruitful things about this conversation has been hearing the voices of teachers, tech workers, and folks like yourself all in one place.

I’d like to briefly comment on the four parts of your formula.

• 1st is always parental guidance and over-sight

While certainly we’d like the parents to be the ones giving primary guidance, that’s often not the case. We can’t assume that parents are going to have the skills to teach the kids history or math, and likewise, we can’t assume that the parents are going to have the skills to teach the effective use of social media — particularly in situations where the only place the student encounters the Internet is at school.

This brings up one of the most important aspects of the blocking debate: the role of teachers to educate parents in the use of the Internet and social media. I would strongly suggest schools hold community meetings and workshops to teach families about current trends and educational applications as well as safety on the Net.

• 2nd is always teachers, coaches and other responsible adults as “maturation pathfinders”;

Here, as before, we need to be on the side of teachers and students by teaching teachers both the positive and negative realities of the Internet. Many of us — such as the folks going to ISTE — make assumptions as to what the majority of teachers themselves think of social media. But if you are not deeply involved, you might think Twitter is all about Oprah and TV celebrities rather than being the Net’s most powerful professional development tool.

We need to do a better job explaining to educators that social media is not ‘content’, but rather a way of communicating. So much of the blocking debate in schools gets fed by fear of content — yet, we have plenty of public institutions and widely used private institutions such as libraries and museums where that is not an issue.

• 3rd is local school authorities;

Local school authorities unfortunately are in a bad position. So often they’re the ones who have to make the call on issues related to discipline as well as allocation of resources: precisely two of the major themes surrounding Internet blocking. So, perhaps what would help is if the school authorities took a cue from social media itself and gave more autonomy for making those sorts of decisions to individual schools, departments, programs, and classrooms.

As all teachers know, the classroom is a matter of context. Catcher in the Rye in one setting is not going to be the same thing as Catcher in the Rye in another setting. It’s not that the content of the book changes, it’s that social dynamics change given different contexts, mixes of personality, comfort level and trust in the classroom — the obvious classroom analogy is the difficulty short-term subs often have teaching a class.

In a way, the authorities up top are as outside the comfort and trust framework of classroom learning as that short-term sub. That doesn’t mean they are good or bad, it just means that they are not going to be as effective as the day-to-day classroom teacher with whom the students have developed a rapport. So to have the local authorities making decisions such as blocking particular sites — especially participatory media sites like Twitter, Pixton, Flickr, YouTube, etc — is to micromanage a classroom whose context you fundamentally don’t understand.

• 4th is “big brother” state and federal government sanctions, supported by some mechanism.

I have no idea why this would be considered part of your formula. It’s so vague as to be scary. I see no ’safety’ in ‘big brother’.

What about an alternate solution? What about allowing teachers to broadcast their classrooms live on a daily basis? What about increasing transparency rather than threatening new blocking measures?

I understand that you have the best intentions and I admire your candor and thoughtfulness. I just think your approach is fundamentally flawed. If you want students to use the Internet wisely, then you should be as transparent and open with them as possible.

To paraphrase Princess Leia (I realize just how much I am geek-i-fying myself here): the more you tighten the grip by blocking, the more the truth will slip through your hands.

Shelly

Richard Close

Wednesday, 10th June 2009 at 9:06 am

 

How to get Filtering Web 2.0 and 3.0 to work

Thanks for your thoughts. It is consistent with the frustrations on other blogs. We threw the baby out with the bathwater on filtering.

Perhaps this may help. Below are the flaws on Filtering vs. Web 2.0 (not to mention Web 3.0) that these blogs and focus groups have uncovered. After that, I will give you some solutions.

First issue: The core problem is that filtering systems were designed on the old corporate model of keeping bad things out. They were never designed by the collaborative technology of workgroups and linking that is within Web 2.0. If you turn on the filter, you turn off collaboration. This is not a good solution.
Second issue: Teachers have always been natural filters. They can talk about hate groups and even bring in a news clip about it. What we did was take that freedom away from them.
Third issue: The growth of raw Web 2.0 Internet content and tools are too vast for the experts to handle, not to mention the Main Street teacher. We must come up with a simple, one-page way for a teacher to launch an Internet lesson and control the class.
Fourth issue: The students also need searching to be as easy as walking into a physical library. It should be in categories and be age appropriate.
Finally: All of this must be integrated: flexible search, intuitive library, collaborative curriculum and simple lesson launcher.

Basically, the Web Education System needs to provide the selective security and the same ability to focus the class that they had in a physical class before.

Over the past six months, I have been doing research for a K-12 Internet education company, http://www.bascom.com. They saw these issues years ago and figured out how to do safe Web 2.0 enriched lessons in a filtered environment which allows the teacher to have granular control over content and tools. The trick is the teacher having control over a fluid filter and lesson tool.

Based on one of their user groups, I developed a webinar for educators to present to their departments on these topics. It’s an interesting approach. The other need was to get IT, librarians and educators on the same page.

I would love to have you attend the webinar that I developed for them and give me your impressions: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/819862011
My Ning is: http://insideeducation.ning.com
I will be at the NECC. Thanks so much for you input.
Feel free to contact me directly at: rclose@richardclose.info
Again, Thanks for the input. I hope this response helps you.

Richard Close
http://www.richardclose.info
http:insidelearning.ning.com

Ann Darling

Wednesday, 10th June 2009 at 9:44 am

 

Another question for this discussion. Is it ethical to use web 2.0 tools in classrooms knowing that our students must provide personal information to create their accounts? Does this practice require parental notification? I’ve always been a little queasy about my students who create their google accounts, and then whip out their cell phones to access email and then activate said account because our district blocks all email. I’ll agree most students already have a large web presence but it only takes one parent to raise this question and bring up the privacy argument for which I don’t have a good answer.

Shelly Blake-Plock

Wednesday, 10th June 2009 at 12:22 pm

 

@Ann

I think you raise an interesting question on the minds of many an admin. But the issue of privacy is only part of the equation; there is also the issue of digital transparency and the authentic (and useful) use of social media.

Here’s a repost to your response via the TeachPaperless blog to give you an idea of what I’m thinking is an even more heady dilemma:

A 21st Century Dilemma

We all know that an alias and an alt Gmail account pwn any Web 2.0 log-in without giving away any personal information. We also know how annoying it is to have to deal with anons on blogs or discussion boards.

So, the dilemma: Do you let kids alt their way around outmoded firewalls and proceed anonymously through Web 2.0, or do you teach them to approach social media in an open manner and risk whatever consequences?

reposted from: http://teachpaperless.blogspot.com/2009/06/21st-century-dilemma.html

Paul Anderson

Friday, 12th June 2009 at 4:58 pm

 

From my view, there are two main reasons for Internet filtering. These reasons, would be “Bandwidth” and “Appropriate Content”. The Bandwidth issue would be easy to solve with the Districts purchasing more bandwidth. The Appropriate Content issue is a little more sticky. In my opinion, we could try to have a law pass that exempted schools from lawsuits from parents for any internet content their children may be expose to. Or have a “switch” that any teacher can turn off after signing an agreement that they will be responsible for any potential lawsuits that might arise out of their students use of the unfiltered internet. This should take care of most of the reasons why schools filter.

I am in a school district that last year, loosened its filtering dramatically, now the same teachers who last year were asking us why we had to have a filter, now want us to block the same sites that they wanted open a year ago!

On another thought, would you agree that the school library should contain magazines like Playboy and Penthouse? Because with no filtering you would be allowing these and much worse.

It is not the filter that blocks sites, only people who put the sites into the filter. Any site can be unblocked and any site can be blocked, I think most schools filtering process (how things get blocked or unblocked) needs to be looked at and figured out how to work better to serve everyone.

It all comes down to affordable bandwidth and legal liability, if you can figure out how to solve these, then unfiltered internet is just around the corner.

When it comes to cell phones and other personal internet enable devices, if the school or district allows the use of such items, then they may (and most likely will) be held liable for any potential lawsuits brought forth from the inappropriate use of these devices.

[...] this article about the use of filtering and blocking software in schools and libraries.  The answer is not to [...]

[...] post to exhort educators to take action, along the lines of her guest post here on ISTEconnects, “What Does Internet Blocking Suggest to Students?” She wrote yesterday: The blocking debate ended this [...]

Brian

Tuesday, 23rd June 2009 at 11:07 am

 

What I still don’t get about the Internet filtering/blocking debate in schools is this; why for years has it been ok to filter/block access to books in school libraries, but now teachers/educators/students/parents feel that schools must have a wide open Internet policy.

After all, your school library, “filters in” the books the school has chosen to hold in its collections. There are no books on: bomb making, that contain vulgar images/language, porn, hate filled speech, advertisements, wide open comments, etc. Where has all the outrage been, over the course of the last 100 years in the education world, over this “filter”?

You may believe and want wide open, unfiltered, and unblocked access to the Internet for your students, but you also have to realize that because of the dynamic nature of the Internet and the immense amount of unfiltered content on there, it is just not possible in schools. Say you want to take the students to whitehouse.gov and one in your class mistakenly types in whitehouse.com – how are you going to handle that in the class? It is the equivalent to putting a bunch of magazines on a table and telling students to grab one and having a playboy mixed in with all of them. That would never be permitted in a non-technical school world. If all schools, nationwide, had totally unfiltered Internet access, you’d have absolute chaos ensue. Teachers I work with don’t even know how to send an email attachment, let alone be able to safely direct students through social networking sites, to Youtube videos, etc.

There is a major difference in a school environment blocking and restricting Internet access to minor, versus China as a nation restricting access to the same Internet to its citizens. As educators, you have to be able to see, and distinguish, the difference there.

As you’d suspect, I don’t agree with what much of Shelly states in the original blog post above. “Whatever happened to the notion that teachers are capable of educating their students? Whatever happened to the notion that it was better for a student to learn about the dangers of life among peers in the safety of a classroom led by a trained professional teacher rather than in the darkness of a bedroom alone in the glow of the computer screen?” What Shelly conveniently leaves out of the picture in the above quoted paragraph is – parents.

Ken Christian

Thursday, 2nd July 2009 at 9:01 am

 

Justin brought up a good point that everyone sees coming: the cell phone as the alternative internet provider at school. The cell phone is here to stay and so is the internet and it is getting so cheap that every child can afford it.

Before I started reading this thread I was more in favor of filters and censorship than I am now after reading all these comments. But, you can teach a person something and he is only going to really get it after that person experiences it. The two best examples are “don’t touch the wet paint” and “don’t play with electricity with your bare hands” Everyone has these explained to them but everyone tries them anyway.

So, if people are going to try it anyway, many of you argue they should learn it at school first. If you get rid of the filters, do you take the kids through the trenches so they can experience it at school first? I see the filters at school as a time saver for teachers. It saves them from endlessly controlling the kids every step onto the “filter zone.”

Do teachers want to teach time management? Is it better to let kids email at school and use up their time doing that instead of some research with a teachers help at their side (like in college). I agree that blocking email usage is useless and blocks a useful tool.

It seems though that the filters and blocking have a place at certain ages and levels of experience and as long as parents can sue schools for their child’s bad behavior we will never see an end to “censors and filters” in school.

Justin K. Reeve

Thursday, 2nd July 2009 at 9:28 am

 

Don’t get me wrong. I’m DEFINITELY not saying filters aren’t necessary. We do have an obligation to protect the students from harmful material, pornography, inflammatory sites that could contribute to violence in the schools (although I think if a student is trying to view sites like this, they usually have existing problems unrelated to the sites they’re viewing), and so on.

But when districts end up blocking sites like GoodReads or Ning or Skype or even Edublogs, one has to raise an eyebrow, and consider what we’re trying to accomplish here. We’re in the business of educating, and these services have undeniable educational value, so why aren’t we restructuring our policies to incorporate them into our students’ learning?

I think one main problem is the lack of parental involvement in how children experience learning at schools. Are parents (a) being kept in the loop on how we expect their children to behave according to the AUP, and (b) are they willing to give the teachers some freedom in teaching Internet responsibility, without teachers and administrators being fearful of lawsuits when students decide to abuse that freedom?

I hear of parents all the time who DON’T even think the Internet is a necessary tool in the classroom, when the old textbook-in-hand, teacher-writing-on-the-chalkboard worked well enough for them in school. Perhaps schools need to start holding regular “Internet Awareness” classes for parents. Could there be a way to make these classes mandatory, i.e. “if you enroll a child at our school, you have to be aware of how we teach in the 21st century?”

Olav Ostvold

Sunday, 27th September 2009 at 6:54 pm

 

Having read this thread – nothing has managed to rock my belifes but there are quite a few great points here. What bothers me is the abscence of the motives for blocking access.
In Burma etc – it’s easy to understand,in schools it’s more complicated. Norwegian schools tend to sunbscrribe to filters that block access if the word sex (Leaving it virtualluy impossible to look up “Sex pistils” In other words – Nudity is extremely dangerous . Torture and violence is acceptable. Can anyoune tell me why ???

[...] http://www.isteconnects.org/2009/06/04/what-does-internet-blocking-…; http://unmaskdigitaltruth.pbworks.com/ http://www.ala.org/ala/aboutala/offices/oif/statementspols/statemen…; http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/aasl/aaslissues/cipaandschoollib/…; http://www.ncsl.org/IssuesResearch/TelecommunicationsInformationTec…; [...]