BLOCKED!

I completely understand the reasons why internet filters are in place in schools, I do. However, I feel as if our district blocks WAY too much. When things are blocked, it (our filter) gives a general reason. These reasons include but aren't limited to...
Violent
Pornography (Obviously 2 that need to stay blocked)
But then:
Discussion boards
Blog
Personal Pages
Technical or Business Forums

Many times when I try to research a tech question, the page that probably has the best answer is blocked. Reason: Technical Forum. Is this really to stop students from researching how to by-pass the filter/network in the first place?

Another example: The other week I went to find a site for Jackson Pollock's Birthday. www.JacksonPollock.org was blocked. Reason: Personal Pages. Sure, we can jump through the hoops of getting something unblocked, but by the time that it is, the opportunity has past.

In an era of real-time learning, it seems we are cheating our students. For example, if researching World War II, a hate speech blog is stumbled upon, wouldn't that be a great learning opportunity to say: "Look, this is the internet, it’s not appropriate for school (or anywhere for that matter) but its life and as soon as you leave these walls, you might encounter it." Instead, because of that possibility, a blog featuring a primary source from the War (A CC prisoner, veteran, etc) falls under the same category and isn't accessible.

Where is the line drawn for your school? Has anyone found a successful compromise between all or nothing in the world of Internet filtering?

Tags: blocking, filter, internet, safety

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Permalink Reply by Lisa Nielsen on February 5, 2009 at 12:27pm

Agree with you wholeheartedly but schools are afraid. I'm afraid of what we're teaching, if we're not teaching kids to navigate the real world of the internet where outside of schools they'll be looking at all this without input or guidance from adults. One idea I've proposed is that every classroom have an unblocked teacher line, or that there could be a teacher log in and student log in. At least it would be a start. No one has implemented this, but it is a good suggestion I think. The issue is that it is often considered to difficult to do this sort of thing and not being at risk is just easier. The very tech savvy educators I know have broken down and purchased broadband cards because they are dependent on using the internet as an instructional tool. Unfortunately, I've heard some of these teachers have been forbidden to use such devices at school (ugh!).

Keep fighting the fight and good luck.

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Permalink Reply by Martha on February 5, 2009 at 12:51pm

It is a frustrating problem. I think we can all agree that wide-open access is probably not appropriate, but the current filtering most of us deal with does seem to impede legitimate teaching and learning!

The system I currently work for has a filtering program that allows teachers to authenticate through with our username and passwords to access many sites. For example I have to authenticate to access this site because it is social networking. Same thing for Twitter and Teachers.net, Flickr, etc. This doesn't help if you have students doing research on computers, but it does allow teachers to access information that is appropriate. Of course some categories (such as "R Rated") even teachers can't access.

I feel like this system is a good compromise between safety (or paranoia, depending on how you see it) and access.