Websensed

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My school district has finally been able to distinguish a teacher from a student, at least in terms of their online access.

We recently received an e-mail explaining that teachers would be able to access previously blocked sites (i.e. YouTube and many blogs) for educational purposes.  In order to get this access, teachers will have to sign a form explaining they understand what “Acceptable Use” and “Educational Purposes” mean.

The district is responding to staff requests for increased access privileges. At this time, the district will provide access to the previously blocked resources of YouTube and external blogging. The district will open additional resources that are identified and approved for educational purposes.

To be clear, Websense (our internet filter) will still be in place.  When teachers come upon a site that is blocked through Websense, they will be able to pass through – offering them a gentle reminder that there is reasonable cause to have the site blocked in the first place.

Under the district’s interpretation of CIPA, students will not be granted this level of access.

Finally, I feel like a professional who can make decisions about what should and shouldn’t be used in the classroom.

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The Library of Congress has recently made a huge step in embracing such Web 2.0 concepts such as creativity, collaboration and sharing between users.

In an effort to provide better access to their collections, while symbiotically harvesting more information about those collections, the Library of Congress has created a Flickr page to host copyright-free pictures:

Out of some 14 million prints, photographs and other visual materials at the Library of Congress, more than 3,000 photos from two of our most popular collections are being made available on our new Flickr page, to include only images for which no copyright restrictions are known to exist…

…We want people to tag, comment and make notes on the images, just like any other Flickr photo, which will benefit not only the community but also the collections themselves.

More information is available on the Library’s Web site here and on the FAQ page here. You can read Flickr’s take here.

-from the Library of Congress Blog

While this is a tremendous offer, don’t forget about the slew of resources already available from the Library of Congress (including a section for teachers). Check them out for your classes and for yourself.

And there is also an underlying motive here. To help the Library on this project, Flickr has even created a new publication model for public collections called The Commons. Both the LOC and Flickr are hoping to encourage other public institutions to follow their lead. (In fact, the National Library of Australia is already doing a similar project with Picture Australia).

But of course, making these collections easily available has tremendous implications in education. This is a perfect way to teach about tagging and sharing in the classroom, while using historically important content without the worry of students accessing inappropriate content. And these pictures have no copyright restrictions, so they can easily be used by students and teachers in endless and creative ways in many classes. Too bad Flickr is blocked by Websense in my district.

What could you do with these pictures?

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This little story illustrates the absolutely ridiculous nature of Websense – my district’s internet filter.

While perusing through my feeds on Google Reader this morning, I found a link to a New York Times article about how the state of New York is investigating Facebook’s safety rules.

Needless to say, I was websensed. While trying to link to this article, I was blocked. Thinking this was just a fluke, I typed ‘facebook’ into the NY Times search field:

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Again, I was blocked by Websense:

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To recap, my district’s internet filter is not only blocking Facebook (with which I completely agree), but they are also blocking information about Facebook!

Where am I – the United States or China!

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Websenseless

In anticipating the release of Google Presentation, The Official Google Blog recently released a neat little video describing the power and utility of Google Documents. The video speaks for itself and is worth watching:

My biggest problem is that our district has blocked Google Docs via Websense for fear that students might use it to chat (in a quite convoluted way) and import inappropriate content from outside of their safe little fortress of an intranet. This same mentality has them blocking flickr and slideshare.

And this is also why the district blocks YouTube (I might remind you that Google owns them). But stupefying as it may seem, Google Video is open!

When I question these practices, I usually get this response: “what happens if a student imports porn this way?” To which I mentally reply “yeah, that is a LOT easier that plugging in a USB drive full of porn into any district computer.”

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