The Role of Filters in a Web 2.0 Environment
October 2, 2008
Will Richardson recently wrote a post titled Filter Fun where he argues that “I truly believe that filters make our kids less safe.”
As a member of the digital native generation, and a large proponent and practitioner of the integration of Web 2.0 technologies into education, I think Will’s post represents a strong, unjustified stereotype of the role of IT in education. He seems to be sparking an “us against them” attitude of IT versus the rest of the school. This is the wrong approach to solving an important school policy issue.
As Web 2.0 tools become more ubiquitous, school IT departments need to continuously revise their policies to move with the times.
In my experience, the best functioning school IT departments partner with administrators, curriculum directors, and teachers to create sensible policies that work for the entire district. In the case of security and content filtering, we worked with one district to create a Wiki for decision-makers to collaborate and design their own sensible policies on the matter. This was a creative way of building a partnership between IT and the school.
It is also important for Will and others to recognize why content filtering exists. For starters, it is the law! The Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) mandates that “Internet safety policy must include technology protection measures to block or filter Internet access to pictures that: (a) are obscene, (b) are child pornography, or (c) are harmful to minors (for computers that are accessed by minors).”
Obviously, pornography, obscene language, hate group web pages, etc. have no place in a school environment. School is supposed to be a safe place where parents are led to believe that schools are taking every opportunity to protect their kids.
Policies vary by school district and in some cases, any request made by a teacher to unblock a web site made is immediately acted upon after one phone call to our help desk. In other cases, there must be approval by some district-level administrator. Also, in nearly all of our school districts, group policies are set up for teachers, administrators, and students to have different levels of access.
In Will’s case, if he would have called one day ahead of time to ensure that the sites he needed were unblocked, and then tested his presentation with an IT person on site, then he would not have run into any problems. As the IT partner for a number of school districts, we are constantly doing this type of pro-active support to help speakers at our school districts.
In no cases do I think it makes sense for schools to provide unfettered access to the entire internet.
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