Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Internet Filtering....or the lack thereof

I'm bringing up a comment that someone posted below about Internet filtering, and leaving out graphics. Leaving out images would make the Internet a pretty boring place. In addition, there are too many diagrams, illustrations and graphic representations that help in explaining things that I would not want to filter out all graphics. I don't think that searching for graphics is the main issue, but what they provide to the experience of learning.

However, that is a minor issue. The real issue, of course, is that Internet filtering is not being done at the school, or at best is set up incorrectly. If you sit in the parking lot you can pick up just about any website you want…except one or two that were manually plugged into the 3COM device. I am talking porn, hate stuff, alternative life style, game sites, social networking, videos….the whole enchilada with extra hot sauce.

This would be unacceptable at any public school, let alone a religious based school. What takes it to the next level is Denise’s insistence that it was fixed, despite several parent’s insistence to the contrary. A few kids got in trouble for getting to “bad” sites, with a patently untrue and weak story about the kids getting around the filtering. While there is a grain of truth that one can use third party web sites to get to bad sites, this is not what happened. These kids simply stumbled onto the websites, and were punished for it. As someone who posted at Newszap said, Denise was aware of it from before the beginning of the school year, but failed to resolve this issue despite offers from professionals.

The web is a wonderful resource, but for the sake of our children they need to be protected. It is amazingly bad management and arguably child endangerment.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

This from the NewsZap blog...

Yes, I know for a fact that he went to the administration with these facts. 3Com notified the school in January of 07 that they would not support schools with content filtering anymore and recommended Web Sense. Mr. Delgado met with the technology commettee and advised them of that. After talking about it the commettee chose the best 4 content filtering software and Mr. Delgado went to the administration with it.

Anonymous said...

Ichecked this at Holy Cross this morning...it seems to be true.

Anonymous said...

So kids can go on any site they want? That's disgusting!!!!! Why didn't the school fix the problem? Is it hard to correct?

The Quizzinator said...

Yeah, pretty much. American Nazi party, p0rn, transgender lifestyle support, YouTube, Facebook, are all available. It can be yours, too, simply by sitting in the parking lot.

Now...I am not aware of any law that says that a school has to have Internet filtering, but every school does. Why not us?

Anonymous said...

There are federal guidelines to protect students from access to "questionable" or inappropriate sites. There are funds for providing this safety.

Anonymous said...

Well you can't get something called the E-Rate if you don't have internet filtering. From what I've read on the NCEA website, schools can get a good-sized discount on internet and phone services if they are eligible for the E-Rate. I guess we can't. That would save some $!

Anonymous said...

This has to be fixed before school begins!! I am not a Jacono basher, but she is the Principle. This one she has to be directly responsible for.

Anonymous said...

I agree with you!! A couple of parents said that she told them it was fixed 7 or 8 months ago. I don't understand why she told them that if it wasn't.

Anonymous said...

How many of you have actually been IN the classroom and tested out the content filter? Try that and then you can honestly say that it is "not working".

Anonymous said...

Internet filtering is not working. When kids get suspended for getting to bad sites by googling, it doesn't work. I've talked to teachers who say it doesn't work. My friend has been on one person's computer on the network and it doesn't work, and any of us can check the wireless sytem and it doesn't work.

What more proof do you need?

Anonymous said...

Are you saying that the internet filter IS working properly in the classrooms? There have been students who got in trouble in class by going to inappropriate websites. It definitely is not working through the wireless system. A good internet filter should block sites either way - wireless or non-wireless.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know if the internet filtering has been fixed yet?