How many times have educators been burned by their school’s firewall or web site filter? The number is probably too staggering to figure. But, it is a lot! Web site filters are put in place in schools that receive federal funds to buy computers. According to the Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000, filters must be in place or schools become ineligible to receive that money. I stressed educators in the first sentence because the web site filter is more of a hindrance for teachers than for students. “More often, filters hamstring teachers’ efforts to develop lessons that effectively prepare students for 21st-century challenges.” (Washington Post, July 11, 1009)
Filters are much less of a problem for students. Many students are so technology savvy that they know the way to get around these filters. There is even a group of students on Facebook called “How to access Facebook from school” that sends out strategies to it’s members so that they can freely go anywhere on the computers at school. Every time one of the school IT people or state-wide filter techs come up with a patch to fix how students are accessing the web the students will find another strategy around the patch.
I believe that we are better off teaching students about online safety than relying on a filter to do the job for us. Many courses, such as I-Safe, have wonderful programming that is started in the elementary schools to teach students about not releasing their personal information, what to do about online bullying, avoiding “phishing”, and being polite online. In the Middle and High Schools, this education can be continued in all the courses that have some online component or requirement.
Supervision is another key strategy discussed in the Washington Post article. If teachers spend more time walking about the computer lab or library while their students are online, students will have less opportunity to get off-task. Placing computers in highly visible places in the classrooms and library will also be helpful. The use of computer management software is also recommended. I currently use a program called Vision that allows me to see all the computer screens in the Library and the Computer Lab from my computer in my office. I can open chats with the students to redirect them if they are not on an appropriate site, freeze their computers so that they cannot continue what they are working on, or take over their computer in a demonstration mode and show them how to do something.
It is time to get rid of the filters that hamper education. Let’s continue to educate our students about online safety and manners instead of trying to prevent them from accessing the world wide web.
Taking a Look at Engaged Learning
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Before teachers can see how engaged learning can affect the education
of their student's one has to take a look at the definition of it. Engaged
lear...
13 years ago
Researchers found that filters set at the least restrictive level blocked only 1.4 percent of health information sites and blocked 5 percent of sites at the intermediate level. However, at the most restrictive level filters blocked 24 percent of these "good" sites. We are not supposed to rely on filter at all; most times, it is not effective. We are better of teaching them the implications, and the online safety effect, than blocking it because they also have a way of bypassing it with proxies.
ReplyDeleteFilters are one of those "feel good" technologies that winds up hurting as much as they help. They are highly imperfect in design and filter based on criteria that often also blocks completely legitimate sites. It feels good to put them in place and in the absence of the real solution - people actively monitoring what kids are doing - it may be better than nothing, but a bad choice or nothing isn't a choice we should find acceptable.
ReplyDeleteFirst, we should do what is really the only acceptable way of filtering and that is to have live attentive bodies with these kids while they use the computer. We should consider monitoring what they do a priority rather than a burden. Second we should teach them responsible, sensible use of the computers. Third, we should set up reasonable acceptable use policies and enforce them consistantly.
You've raised some very good points about filtering. Because of the fear that so many of our lawmakers seem to have of the internet I don't see the filter requirement going away anytime too soon! So, I believe it is very important that EDUCATORS are involved in determining the level of filtering their school district enforces. Decisions about which sites should be filtered in a school should not be made by only one or two people. It is best practice to have a committee representing various disciplines make those decisions. Schools set their own levels of filtering and the decisions should reflect the desires and needs of the teachers in that school.
ReplyDeleteI hate how the schools firewalls do not allow me to access certain websites that I want to use for class. For example, I like to go on to www.jwpepper.com to look and listen to music to purchase for my school bands. Some of the music is an mp3 other uses Real Player. For some reasons, I cannot open the Real Player examples and cannot download Real Player itself. This is a read inconvenience in that I have to do this at home instead of work.
ReplyDeleteI have also heard of Vision. My friend had her students in the computer lab one day to work on a project. She was told how to use the program and decided to mess with some one of her students who was not doing what they were supposed to be doing. One student kept going on sites that were not class related. So every time he would open Internet Explorer, she would close the window on him. This went on for few minutes and then he came over and told her he thought his computer was broken and then she finally confessed to him. I think this is a great tool to help keep students on task.
I couldn't agree more. I'd love to use a blogging activity (like we've been doing in this class) with my classes this fall. It won't happen for me because all blogs are blocked at my school. How do we expect kids to learn how to deal with an unfiltered internet when they enter the "real world"? I think we need to take advantage of the time we have them in a somewhat sheltered environment to teach them the dangers of the internet.
ReplyDelete