Warning! We Filter Websites at School
I’m at a Canadian School in China. At a staff meeting I shared a thoughtful blog post by a student reporter for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics. It’s a great post by a student that went and visited ‘Tent City’, built to house the city’s homeless during the Olympics: Olympic Games Side Effects on Vancouver. My Grade 9 teacher asked for the Students Live website and a link to this post. (I mentioned the Students Live bloggers here.)
The Students Live website provides a number of different ways to connect and interact with the Olympic reporter student bloggers. However, we live in China which filters a lot of social software websites and so these were the options that my Grade 9 teacher was confronted with:
Facebook: BLOCKED
Twitter: BLOCKED
YouTube: BLOCKED
Blogspot Blogs: BLOCKED
Flickr: (recently) BLOCKED (again)
I had to use my VPN to bypass the Chinese filter in order to cut and paste the blog post, mentioned above, into an email so that my teacher could read it in his class. A potential global ‘conversation’ reduced to a reading, confined to a classroom. Frustrating!
Now here is the thing… I chose to move to a country where a lot of sites get blocked. I can’t imagine what it’s like for teachers in the ‘free world’ that have their own school districts do this to them!
If you are in a school where filters filter learning, here is a little poster for you to hang up in your front entrance:
Tags: #SLR10, 2010 Olympics, blocked, blogger, blogging, Blogspot, Canada, Canadian, China, cyberbullying, datruss, David Truss, district leadership, Facebook, filters, filters filter learning, Grade 9, leadership, net savvy, pairadimes, parenting, parents, PODs, school, social networks, social websites, staff meeting, student bloggers, student blogging, student reporters, Students Live, teachable moment, tent city, Twitter, Vancouver 2010 Olympics, VancouverGirl, VPN, Warning!, websites, YouTube
Background
March 6th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Recently prepared ( at home, stupidly) a presentation to teach my fellow English teachers how to help students evaluate online resources for legitimacy for research. Found several that appeared legit, but when traced back and back were not. One is martinlutherking.org. It’s owned by a Ku Klux Klan type organization. When I presented, I couldn’t get to the back site traces because they were all blocked. So…when a student finds that..there’s no way to verify. It’s on the Internet, it must be right, right?
I did end up taking screen shots to save the presentation, but what a disservice to students!
March 7th, 2010 at 3:22 am
Sounds like it was a great presentation despite the ‘blocks’ you faced!
Yvonne, I could not have said it better!
March 7th, 2010 at 5:37 am
Love the poster! Fortunately, I am NOT in a district that filters so harshly. Only Facebook is blocked, and that only because some teaching aides would not stay off when they were in the classrooms.
Your poster, while snarky, does make excellent points that all parents and administrators should consider before “lowering the boom” on online freedoms.
Keith Schoch´s last blog ..Gary Paulsen: Living Literary Legend
March 10th, 2010 at 5:47 am
We recently had a presenter visit our district, invited by upper administration, to show teachers how to use a wiki. He was using a site of his own as a model.
It was blocked!
March 10th, 2010 at 1:29 pm
Keith,
I must admit to being intentionally snarky because I’m not sure how else I would convey this ‘warning’? But I do believe that ignoring the limitations of filters deserves ‘raising the alarm’.
Mark,
I spent 10 minutes in a presentation praising diigo bookmarking and showing it to the participants before one of them mentioned that the only reason I could get it was because they had opened the filters for my group’s presentations. But I then started an email correspondence with one of the district leaders who had a say in what get’s blocked and although I have not followed up recently, I do believe that diigo is no longer blocked… a small battle won, but one that misses the point:
Filters filter learning!
March 15th, 2010 at 9:33 am
Nothing is more frustrating then when I am doing my lesson plans at home and I come across a great youtube video about the topic and I get to school the next day only to find out that I cant show it to the students….
March 15th, 2010 at 9:48 am
Veero,
I downloaded Miro http://www.getmiro.com/ (for free) and I can search and download movies from many different places using this tool.
Also, if it is a video on YouTube you can just put the word ‘kick’ in front of ‘youtube’ in the web address and then choose a download format to get most videos.
So, change an address like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZV1Jz-SiX_g
to
http://www.kickyoutube.com/watch?v=ZV1Jz-SiX_g
…and then choose the file type and click the green ‘Go’.
Hope that helps,
Dave
March 15th, 2010 at 10:32 pm
I find it incredibly frustrating that the two school districts I have student taught in both have harsh filters. I also find it funny (ironic?) that many teachers and high school students now have smart phones that can not be blocked by school filters and so teachers, teachers aides, and even students can access Facebook and other blocked sites at their leisure!
I downloaded DownloadHelper to download youtube videos and have recently (today) downloaded something to help with Hulu. I download the videos, convert them as needed and put them on a portable harddrive.
It is frustrating when I find teachers who actually support website filters. They are, in effect, absolving themselves of any responsibility or duty to effectively teach students how to be 21st century, digital natives and citizens.
I might add that it is sad when a student can show a teacher a work-around for blocked sites, which I have seen from time to time.
Eric´s last blog ..Blog Jumpstart – Student Teaching
March 15th, 2010 at 11:42 pm
[...] How your school is promoting digital literacy and internet safety –
From @datruss‘ blog, via @lyndsayg [...]
April 20th, 2010 at 1:26 am
[...] Choose your battle:
Filters that also filter learning -or- High expectations about appropriate use?
Banning POD’s -or- High expectations about appropriate use?
Teaching without technology -or- High expectations about appropriate use? [...]
June 3rd, 2010 at 9:39 pm
I agree with this poster. One caveat. I filter certain sites (porn, explosive making, racial hate etc…) and I stand by that – I don’t want my 9 year old daughter typing in ‘HotMale’ by mistake and seeing the wrong results. I have seen this happen so often at schools with no filtering. So many times. Seriously, even with daily training on what to so when confronted with explicit porn, your average 7 year old will see more than they should. It is quite upsetting.
We also spend the time with all year levels 2-12 teaching them what to do if they coma across something inappropriate.
Facebook, Twitter, Myspace etc… – all available. That said, the kids (14 Y.O.’s with newly acquired laptops) have been telling us that they are being really distracted with Facebook at school. Interesting that even the normally distracted kids have been saying this. 10 000 hits on Facebook in a 12.00pm -12.30pm timeslot on our ISA server.
One site I will not defend blocking is http://www.formspring.me. In a utopean society this would be gold. In a real world, I can’t believe the negativeness this has opened up.
Love your work – keep posting.
August 16th, 2010 at 1:54 pm
[...] The discussion about web filtering in schools has been going on for quite some time. These powerful conversations have pushed thinking and ignited important dialogue as we consider the level and depth of filtering required and/or necessary to meet the learning needs of our students. [...]