I’d love to know *why* Blogger is deemed to offend in the sex category – can it be that i-Gear is latching on to the “..gger” bit and ignoring the beginning of the word? Like a young child struggling with look and say? I dunno. Could do better ……

Meanwhile, i’ll just keep bloggering away and hope my fans keep up with me from home!

In fairness, Blogger gets added to I-Gears sex category because of the amount of blogs hosted there that are about sex. That said, IMHO we should be teaching kids that the world is like that: deal with it. Perhaps I’m too liberal on this one though?

Keep bloggering away Chris – the internet is faster from home* for your Argyll fans anyway!

* before I’m criticised for commenting on the connection speeds of Argyll schools, the Pathfinder North project will obviously cure this.

I did notice this – even some of the edublog blogs are on the sex list – I was able to release the Dunoon Grammar S1 site so the English department could get access – have a good Xmas Andrew – see you in the New Year

I’m with you on this one Andrew. The teaching process should be about giving the kids the tools to deal with these situations – not about wrapping them up in cotton wool against the big bad world outside.

Tried Hugh’s S1 site again, but no joy. You’re right about the situation being tragic – all that work already done by Teachers and Students alike unable to be accessed. What a waste!

Thanks for the explanation though. At least I can start working on alternatives – although it niggles me that I should have to!! Well alternatives until I-Gear strikes again.

Have a good Christmas and New Year.

Frioma a Primary School perspective, I teach the kids about stranger danger. We tell them how to stay safe, not to take to strangers and generally how to avoid the unpleasantness which can be found out there. The internet in all its guises is simple an extention of this. My kids are shown not to respond to pop-ups, dodgy emails, online adverts and gambling. It has never been an issue, they just accept it as a safeguard they have to follow.

Happy Christmas and New Year.

Sorry about the typos. It has been a long term.

Andrew, we have had several issues in the past with Blogger when a pupil has clicked on ‘next blog’ and ends up on a blog that really isn’t suitable. So to minimise risks we recommend our schools and pupils use ‘ethink’ (http://ethink.org.uk) to host their blogs.

Steve

I have been following the thread here. My blog is hosted by blogger.com. I do not think that blogger.com is the most appropriate platform to host a teacher blog. The ‘next blog’ button at the top of the blog is, primarily, my main justification here (I have removed mine).

Should it matter that blogger.com is fire-walled in schools?
I say it should be fire-walled. Teachers don’t have time to blog in school; therefore if blogger.com is fire-walled it doesn’t matter. Personally I don’t think that blogger.com is an appropriate platform for hosting pupil blogs; for the reasons discussed in this post and the above comments.

Why am I so anti blogger.com, yet my blog is still being hosted by this site in question?
Time and expertise. With the help of David Gilmour, I am in the process of migrating my blog to the East Lothian platform. I would have done this much earlier, but I want all of my ‘blogging history’ to remain intact.

With David’s help I won’t loose any of my previous posts.

Have a great Christmas!

(New Year, new blog platform)

Thank you for this post – it has pushed me to finally make the move to edublogs. My class were devastated to turn up at school a few weeks ago to find that our Blog had an ‘access denied’ message.

Blogger is once again allowed in my region, and we’re being encouraged to stay put and have been assured that the ban won’t happen again. I’ve since spent hours finding a way of removing the ‘next blog’ button – and have finally succeeded (the advice on how to do this at http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/mfle/creativeteaching/blogging/creatingablog.asp
doesn’t work with the new Beta!).

I had been toying with the idea of moving ‘home’ a few months ago after the first reports about the banning of Blogger Blogs in Argyll and Bute. I decided then to back up my posts in edublogs …. just in case. I’m really glad I did now. It was very easy with the ‘old’ blogger account – the new ‘beta’ blogger doesn’t allow it, so the newer stuff will be transferred ‘bit-by-bit’.

I’ve emailed some more experienced bloggers, and the advice has been to stay put – but the nagging doubts remained.

The decision has finally been made …… So another New Year, New Blog for us at Carronshore too

Hi AB…
Merry Christmas to you and yours.

I’ve become so fed up with the whole blocking thing that I’ve now got our own WPMU set up (blogs.perthacademy.net)… I’m starting by getting the staff to sign up so that it becomes that much harder to ‘block’/'filter’/'censor’ them…

Is there any particular reason why an American company are making the decisions about filtering in Scottish schools? (This is not a cheap dig, it’s more a thought about whether there is a decent UK based filtering service?)

See you sooon!

The best laugh about this whole anti blogger carry on is that LT Scotland recommend it.

Pupils can access dodgy websites and images even with filters.

The way around it is to either only invite pupils to blogger (a pain in the backside) or simply to get them to sign a code of conduct contract. What’s to stop pupils firing off expletive emails?

We shouldn’t let the irresponsible ones ruin it for everyone else.

If someone comes across dodgy material then they should not have been there in the first place.

The BBC cover themselves by saying they are not responsible for external material.

I think this is sufficient enough.