Filters for adults is another matter.

Sigh. Big sigh. In my lab, MBWA is a necessity because the kids are all involved in different projects. Its something called Synergistics (http://www.synergistic-systems.com/) that I am VERY excited about! I can’t wait for my new job to start in a couple weeks!

Few would disagree with blocking pornography, but the vast majority of what is blocked is not pornographic. Instead, tools like wikis, blogs, and content sharing sites are blocked. Would we block the use of paper and pencil because it could be used to draw or write bad things?

In addition to monitoring students, we need to teach them responsibility and smart work habits. As a business owner, I see the workforce reflecting the consequences of blocking in lieu of teaching good habits. I worry about the lack of critical thinking skills and good judgement that results.

Anyone want to talk about the three bigger philosophical issues that I allude to in my post (i.e., political awareness, access to speech, the lack of an information economy mindset)? Or is it all just about management and supervision?

For tech specialists who don’t have to teach students and are not accountable for student behaviors, it’s easy to be philosophical and point out what others are not doing. (I’m in this category- so no unfair criticism for this group, but we do have the benefit of a certain level of “distance” being out of the classroom. And for those not in a school, the distance is even greater.)

For teachers who have to teach and are managing their learning and their behaviors, it is very difficult to manage a classroom without the help of filters and monitoring software. Students are too quick and are good at hiding what they are doing (removing the toolbar to hide which program they are on is my favorite trick, and I’ve seen the best teachers not being able to catch this, and even visiting administrators.) And let’s face it, kids will be kids, and will do silly things to test the boundaries from time to time.

So, one’s job will influence one’s viewpoint about this issue.

There are larger philosophical issues to debate and from an idealistic point of view, better practices are needed, but until better tools and accountability guidelines are in place, I’ll support the teachers in the classroom, because when it comes to teaching students and an administrator’s job of providing a safe environment, it is about management and supervision- because without those, no learning will occur.

BTW- I hate filters also- but I’ll live with it in the meantime.

Pico is about intellectual freedom and was centered around school libraries. The Internet is “kinda” like a school library with one very important distinction – in our library, some process of selection occurs prior to the purchase process. We select based upon providing a broad range of viewpoints on a variety of topics, but there are materials we would not select as some would be illegal to do so (pornography being the most obvious example), and some just not advisable (like books on sexual fetishes to be placed into an elementary library).

So while intellectual freedom is hugely important, and there are some very real issues about how filters are poorly implemented in schools, I don’t dislike the filters themselves. At some level, they provide a component of protection. I hate to even use the term protection as it implies some level of reliability, which I have belief of reliability.

I think the issue of impeding political awareness is not a filter issue, but an implementation issue as well. If a district determined to only block sites deemed pornographic (I know, I know, “deemed by whom?”, would it still impede political awareness?

Trust…? I’d like to say I trust students with information implicitly, but I am not sure I can. As an example… I am our district’s director of technology, and our technology committee handles requests for changes to filtering policy. Every year, Google Images is brought to me by an administrator who dislikes what some students do with Google Images. We provide them with data that shows most searches seem to be at best, school-related and in a worst case scenario, completely recreational. But, a small percentage of students seek out images clealy looking for nudity, images of sex (sometimes with animals), and other images which I would have a hard time saying we should waste our bandwidth on. This is a small portion of students and it seems to come an go in waves.

We’ve elected to continue the use of Google Images, but I have to admit, these issues become harder each year when we start to see some of the “mixed” content sites. Youtube certainly is not helping as they cannot even keep up with enforcing their own policies (watch how long it takes for them to address people who post in violation of their policies).

Is it possible that the dislike of filtering isn’t so much about the idea of filtering as it is about the poor implementation and decision-making structures wrapped around it?