Filtering – How much, and what?

I finally got around to posting a comment to a post by Adrian Greig on the Expanding Learning Horizons and SchoolTech 2007 group on facebook and thought I’d share my thoughts here as well. I’m not sure of the general availability of this post so I’ll repeat some of it here.

Adrian asked the following:

Web filtering on the internet…there are risks but great benefits?
What is the best solution/answer. Completely open? Filter heavily? Or some balance?
Who should choose?
How to decide what gets filtered?
My state system has major filtering in place much to the great ire of many teachers as they want to use Youtube, etc.
How much do you filter?
How do you deal with problems?

This is an issue that I have been thinking a lot about lately. I am being made increasingly aware of the frustration caused to teachers when the lesson they have planned won’t work because of blocked sites.

My response to Adrian was:

I work for a Multi-Campus Independent K-12 College on the NSW Hunter Coast as the Sys Admin for one of those campuses. We have implemented a central filtering appliance at our ISP so that all of our Campuses (5) go through the same filter. Any requests to have a site unblocked have to go through our Main Campus.

I have seen first hand the struggle our teachers have with this, and I too have my hands tied as I can’t assist them.

Since ELH, Lisa-Gaye and I have discussed filtering and if it is too heavy. As stated earlier we have a “duty of care” to our students, but does that mean “filter anything and everything that may pose a real or implied threat” or does it mean “filter as much of the nasty’s that you can, but leave the middle grey areas open and teach about the dangers”? I have seen our senior students give up on using the Internet for research as, in their words, “we cant get to anything so why bother trying”

It’s interesting that when searching I have found documents put out by the Education Departments in Vic, Tas, and SA all to do with the “duty of care” as it applies to the Internet, but nothing from NSW where we are based.

I’d like to do some research… pick a couple of classes (get parental permission), reduce the filtering, monitor their use (for pastoral care follow up as required), and see how their work standard, and attitude improve. Could be interesting I think.

What do you think about the whole filtering issue? I’d like some feedback on this to take to our ICT Committee when we try and push for change.

Talking Heads

Just a quick update. We have started discussions with our Heads of Schools, and all is starting to look well. It appears that a few of us are on the same page, some even further ahead than I thought. 2008 is rapidly approaching and we are needing to move fast with this one. I am meeting with our Head of Middle School and our ICT Learning Co-ordinator – K-12 (lgw) next week. Lets see what we can push for next year. 2009 looks like it will be a year of great change. That is if we cant push it all through before then.

Fade to Grey

So, where do we begin? There were 7 of us at ELH2007 last week, and for most of us, there were huge plans, big dreams and the biggest of visions of what we would like to do. The worst thing would be to loose all of this.

This week I hope to get together with those of our Executive that attended. Our HOJS, HOSS, and ICT Learning Co-Ordinator K-12, and have a look at what they each want to do. I can see a brainstorming session coming on. The biggest issue will be timeframe. Obviously this is not going to happen overnight, but we need to start planning to make it happen. In the meantime the Teachers that were there have come away with great ideas and new ways to do things.

We will also need to look at Policy. What is currently in place is very restrictive. The sad part is that I wrote it. The happy part is that I’m open to change it. This I believe will be the first step. I can now see that the uses of ICT in Education are not something that can be controlled by Black and White Policy. We need to get to the point where we are flexible. At some point in time, some of that policy will need to fade to grey.

Catalyst

Was searching around tonight and came across dswaters’ post on I didn’t start the fire, and also robynjay’s post on Firewalls of the mind. Congratulations to whoever brought you all together.

I am from the “Tech” side, and used to think along the lines of “Filter to protect (both our students and our network).” After a couple of years working along side a colleague (Teacher) I now look at this in very different ways. In usual fashion we locked horns and butted heads. The never ending “I want to be able to teach” vs. “I want to keep my network safe,” but then we started talking. We shared our desires to see our students educated. To be excited about their world, and the never-ending opportunities that the digital age is opening up.

We need to allow our Teachers and our Learners to search the world. There definitely needs to be a dialogue between the both parties. We can try and block for moral protection, but that doesn’t teach our students about living in their digital world.

I have just returned from the Expanding Learning Horizons conference, held in Lorne in Victoria. It is a huge event aimed at Teachers and Educators, Visionaries, and also Technicians and IT Managers. In saying that, we shared a few keynote presentations, then the two groups split into their own streams.

I was so inspired that I only attended the educators’ streams. I am really starting to get my head around the truth that teachers need to be able to teach, and learners need to have access.

You may notice that this is basically the reply I left to robynjay’s post; this was one of the catalysts for my Teacher Friendly Tech blog.

Welcome to Teacher Friendly Tech.

The title for my Blog came from a comment made to me by a collegeue at the recent Expanding Learning Horizons conference in Lorne, VIC. Unlike previous years, this time I steered clear of the “Techo” sessions and remained with our Teachers, following them as they explored the way’s in which ICT should be integrated in today’s learning.

The biggest thing that I have taken from this conference is the need to allow learning to happen. For too long the focus has been on filtering, monitoring, and restricting access to unsavoury content. In doing so we have stopped our users from learning in their real world.

Over the coming weeks I will endeavour to unravel all that I have learned at this conference, and how we need to put it in to practice, and what this will entail on both sides of the technology fence. Please join me in discussing these things, I welcome input from both Teachers & Educators, Visionaries, and Technical guru’s as well. There’s a lot that I need to learn as well. So lets see where this take us, and where we can take our students.