Filters and Students

Hello everyone!
I am trying to encourage our district to open up more Web 2.0 tools for student use. Currently we do not have hosted email accounts for students, they cannot access Wikis or Blogspots. We have admin that are concerned that students will use tools inappropriately. Our students and teachers need the chance to use these wonderful tools. Shouldn't students be given a chance to earn our trust? We have strict rules and consequences for misuse, but admin simply doesn't see the advantage and they are very concerned.
Have you had to deal with this?
What have you done?

Thanks in advance!
Tracy

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Permalink Reply by Steve O'Connor on July 22, 2008 at 10:30am

I am in the process of writing a blog on this topic. I started by creating a school website in which students could contribute articles (didn't happen often) that would appear after moderated by an adult.

This got my foot in the door. No matter what I did, I uttered the mantra: Nothing gets to the Internet without an adult's review and approval (keep it simple!!). Having done this for a year without incident, I went on to student blogs uttering the same mantra.

Then I wanted to try a wiki project. This time I used the walled garden approach--nobody can see this without a password.

I recently got some push back from some elements as my supportive superintendent is leaving. I am still in the process, but you need to listen to the arguments and patiently research rebuttals using solid facts. At this point, I backed down a little making student blogs only accessible to other students and staff--while still being moderated. I have pretty much decided to try and craft a policy in which the parents decide what access others should have to the blogs. I hope I can get this past the tech committee, the new administrator, and the Board of Ed.

Also, I used open source web apps rather than hosted solutions to give more control over privacy (besides, our own stuff isn't filtered).

Just a few scattered thoughts. Perhaps more later.

Steve