A blast from the past: a PSA produced in 1995 by 5th graders in Helena, Montana. Seventeen years later – because of insufficient quantities of computing devices, draconian filtering and blocking systems, differential student usage and access, inadequate bandwidth, adult fears, and many other issues – many of our students are STILL asking how they...
Category: blocking
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The way we should be thinking about Internet filtering
Upcoming travel and events December 3-5 – International School of Amsterdam, The Netherlands February 3 – Virginia Is for Learners Innovation Network, TBD, VA February 25-26 – Missouri Educational Technology Leaders CTO Clinic, TBD, MO March 10-13 – Central & Eastern European Schools Association (CEESA) Annual Conference, Budapest, Hungary June 8-9 – Roanoke County Public...
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![Nullifying the Web [SLIDE]](/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/nullifying-the-web-slide_5fce09e5b34f7.png "Nullifying the Web [SLIDE]")
Nullifying the Web [SLIDE]
Upcoming travel and events December 3-5 – International School of Amsterdam, The Netherlands February 3 – Virginia Is for Learners Innovation Network, TBD, VA February 25-26 – Missouri Educational Technology Leaders CTO Clinic, TBD, MO March 10-13 – Central & Eastern European Schools Association (CEESA) Annual Conference, Budapest, Hungary June 8-9 – Roanoke County Public...
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Filtering social media in schools because it’s a ‘distraction’
Annie Murphy Paul said: according to the [American Association of School Librarians], schools’ top three filtered content areas are social networking sites, instant messaging and online chatting, and games. Such activities aren’t (necessarily) inappropriate or illegal, but they are big honking distractions, and if we want our young people to learn anything during the school...
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It’s late 2015 and we’re still overblocking the Internet
It’s late 2015, we’re still overblocking the Internet, and the blame is on us as administrators… I read a post recently that stressed yet again how access to the wide range of the Internet is an equity issue. Like library and textbook censorship, not only does blocking video services, social media, online interactive content, and...
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Peak indifference to surveillance
Cory Doctorow said: In the educational domain we see a lot of normalisation of designing computers so that their users can’t override them. For example, school-supplied laptops can be designed so that educators can monitor what their users are doing. . . . [Students] are completely helpless because their machines are designed to prevent them...
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10 quick thoughts on mobile phones in schools
A few quick thoughts… Most people realize that mobile phones are actually mobile computers. But many schools that claim to be doing everything they can to get technology into the hands of schoolchildren then ban their students from using the computers that they bring in their pockets every day. The issue apparently is not technology,...