Andrew
Some good points there but I think your ‘missing the point’ is also missing a point.
Filtering is not generally being done to protect the pupils. Its done to protect the authorities.
Protect them from Law Suits, parental complaints, and general hassle.
If they put something in place and keep tight control over it within their domain then they cannot face any of these things.
I, personally, believe that some form of filtering is required but has to be setup in such a way that it is flexible.
Should my wife’s P1/2/3 class of pupils have exactly the same restrictions as a head teacher? Let alone a 6th year pupil.
I totally agree that information literacy is required but it has to be guided by a professinal who is trusted.

I’m sure I’m missing more than one point Ian! Of course, filtering is in place for very good reasons – the less time that local authority staff can spend on law suits, parental complaints etc and focus on learning and teaching, the better.

I suppose I think that with the dawn of a national intranet there are other more efficient ways of focusing our students attention on what they should be looking at/for, rather than trying to apply filters that my not be quite fit for purpose?

You can guarantee it will catch on – but only with those in the know and those with the dosh for the bandwidth.

There are always workarounds loads of folks have used Proxy Servers and loads of other ways to get round any systems in the past.

How many teachers would know what a 3G card even looked like ??

Surely schools and local authorities should be spending more to block these unauthorized devices from schools

Its all about personalisation and trust and moving power to the learners.
There is a place for filters but we need some more enlightened thinking in this area – this issue has rumbled on for too long.

I would love to have answered but we had websense start today

Joe – Any teacher that looks at billboards or adverts must – on the way to work this morning I passed 12 huge posters showing me what a 3G USB stick looks like! I think you’re spot on about personalisation and trust – should both increase with the age of the student?

Ian – looks like at 2.32pm today you found a way around it? Seriously though, in Argyll you have the capacity to add to the ‘whitelist’ which is great for the teachers there.

Incidentally, does anyone else find the term ‘whitelist’ and ‘blacklist’ hugely offensive, or is it just me?

Andrew
Your recent thoughts have made me realise how lucky I am to work in such a forward thinking authority such as East Lothian. I rarely come across blocked sites and more importantly our IT team have always ‘unblocked’ things for me immediately should this occur.
Thankfully children ( and persistant teachers) never give up and find a way eventually

“personalisation and trust – should both increase with the age of the student?”

Would the inverse be true dependent on the age of the teacher???

or, more seriously,

Should the age of the children being taught have any bearing on the levels of access for the staff???

Lynne – it’s good to hear when a system works well. I understand that ELC use websense too? It would be interesting to hear how the system of unblocking sites employed by yout IT team works in practice, and how many members of staff they have working on it in relation to the number of requests to unblock sites from staff?

Alan – personally, I don’t think there should be any filtering for staff. This would allow them to find sites/resources. Were they to access content that was ‘inappropriate’ in the eyes of the law, then they would be accountable under the acceptable use policy they signed. One problem with this model is that they would then have to check whether pupils could access the sites/resources they found, which would be a cumbersome process of having to log in with ’student’ access and then check the accessibility of the site in question.

At what point do we realise that filtering simply doesn’t work? Why is the quality of access to educational content restricted by the overbearing (and over emphasised) fear of litigation? Keeping someone safe online is not merely about shielding them from the inappropriate, but about educating them morally to decide what falls into that category.

I have been tempted to get one of these dongles to use as a teacher;-)
I often want to use some nice safe resource that is either filtered on uses ports that are not open at school. I’ve spent countless hours preparing and testing things at home that do not work in school due to filtering or network issues.
Teacher bypass of some sort would be a move in the right direction. I’d guess it will be a long time coming.
NB the wink above is to assure that I would not really consider bypassing the filters in such an unprofessional fashion.

If there is basic level filtering of the really ‘nasty’ stuff and then some background recording of internet use then we can focus on responsible use. We help our pupils know what to do if they do find something ‘uncomfortable’, how to be safe and responsible online and have the means to challenge inappropriate use.

Why not open up our networks and invite all the devices that the students use imaginatively smuggle into our schools and put them to good use for teaching and learning.

I don’t want to spend my days trying to plug the holes in the dyke, I would rather let the water pour in and let the kids show me what great swimmers they are.

Is this what you mean?
http://www.vodafone.com/start/media_relations/news/local_press_releases/uk_press_releases/2007/unlimited_internet.html

[...] as social networks and video sharing, are drivers which are creating debate in our community (eg on Andrew’s blog) on how to effectively provide for developing learner and teacher requirements by [...]

Yes Ian, these devices are in our schools whether we like it or not. The students are just really good at hiding them. Why not bring them onto the desks and make them work in a positive way for learning and teaching? Why not go further though and open up our wireless networks to welcome any wireless devices, ‘Wee Pcs’, PSPs etc. If they have a bowser put them to work to support the leaner. If we put as much effort into encouraging responsible, imaginative use of these devices as some Authorities spend trying to shut them out I think the outcome will be very positive.

Catching up with this rather late…
AB says “People can, and do circumvent technological filters/barriers to get to what they want. Perhaps it’s time we put as much thought, time and finance into teaching information literacy as we do employing technological barriers to content, then we’d be in a better position to educate those in our charge about safe appropriate use of the net.”
and I totally agree. Of course, we have a responsibility to filter out the really nasty sites – but we also have a responsibility to teach pupils how to deal with the internet for themselves. You only have to listen to them talking about how they use it at home to realise that keeping them in a very protected walled garden in school doesn’t do them any favours. If pupils have signed an AUP, this can be used to deal with deliberate misuse of the system. Schools should also implement proper programmes for developing information literacy – it is now an essential life skill.
Ian Stuart says: I totally agree that information literacy is required but it has to be guided by a professional who is trusted.
Can I suggest that this is an area in which school librarians have expertise and we would be delighted to be involved.

[...] as social networks and video sharing, are drivers which are creating debate in our community (eg on Andrew’s blog) on how to effectively provide for developing learner and teacher requirements by [...]