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.