I found this fascinating quote today:
But the ‘firewall’ supposed to keep them ’safe’ does not work. They go home to read and watch it, or use their phones? Are we then to install mobile phone ‘jammers’? We have not created a ‘firewall’, but a brick wall - we are Blocking Learning. We might be ‘covering’ it over with policy, rendering it with policical ‘motherhood’ messages, but behind the rhetoric is a solid wall, that believes ‘the internet’ is somthing that can be controlled and monitored, and that a few people (Senetor Conroy, the czar of communication in Australia - #nocleanfeed) should dictate our social connections, contracts and learning.Dskmag, Mar 2009
You should read the whole article.
I had a teacher try to look up a site on the War of 1812, a site used by a student in his research paper. The site was blocked at school. The student took his paper word for word from that website as the teacher had to look it up at home.
Australia (where the author, Dean Groom works) has certainly had some interesting national discussions about content filtering lately. From what I understand, they spent millions on a single filtering system for their schools and a high school student was able to circumvent/defeat the entire thing in about 10 minutes time. I read tonight after reading your post that Australia is talking about implementing nationwide content filtering for ALL users (school and otherwise) in an attempt to protect the public from the evils of the Internet. There ARE evils to be found on the Internet, no doubt, but as we know it’s important to help cultivate those decision-making skills. How can we help our Oklahoma school leaders understand this?
Dean Groom rocks. And, as Wesley pointed out, it is sad to hear that the Australian government is seriously considering internet filtering to shield people from the “obscene” or “harmful” material on the interwebs (couldn’t resist that one, D!). If it those two words sound familiar, it is likely due to similar wording in your school district. The problem is that many useful, educational sites get blocked in the process of identifying what is harmful and what is not.
I think most folks in the education community can agree on what is obscene. But, deciding what is harmful is tricky. facebook may be a time-suck, and it may lend itself to harmful activities but when used correctly, the site is not harmful. Teaching students what actions may be harmful within a given site is our job as teachers…but it sure is difficult to teach when there is no access. The kids know this. Just look at what Peggy Sheehy’s students have to say about filtering and blocking content online: http://bit.ly/nxnEv
Thanks so much for that comment Shea. I really appreciate you sending me the link too. I’ve seen it once but it didn’t carry as much connection for me until tonight. Thanks for helping me put together my next blog post.
I’m not sure but I do know we can’t stop trying to help them understand.
Thanks for stopping by Andy. I really appreciate your comment.
I really appreciate your comment.
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