This morning at EduBloggerCon Jim Gates facilitated a very good conversation on internet filtering, although we had way too many people in the room to involve everyone.
It’s obviously a topic that touches a nerve with many teachers and others involved with technology in schools.
However, I still don’t understand the IT folks who insist on locking down computers used by students so that they become artificial environments – no right click, no access to CD/DVD/USB, extremely limited network access.
Reminds me of the dumb terminals we used a while back, an era I thought we had long since progressed passed.
Anyway, Jim’s goal was for the group to come up with ideas for an instructionally sound filtering policy that everyone could use in talking with their administrators and IT staff.
Unfortunately, we really didn’t have time to get much of that done, but hopefully it gave everyone a starting point. This is something that needs to be continued.
If you’re interested, Kristin Hokanson took notes using Cover It Live. Didn’t see anyone taking video but I wouldn’t be surprised if something pops up since there were plenty of those pocket-sized cameras around.