Blocked: Social Networking
I work in a UK school and as such my internet access is heavily filtered. This frustrates me no end but I do understand some of the need. Adult rated and illegal content should be filtered. But what really grates on me is ‘Social Networking’ being blocked. It’s such a broad term that seems to encompass any website that allows you to share information with others. But with the vast majority of websites incorporating some aspect of this, where do you draw the line? I clicked on a link today to an article about comics and it was blocked under the social networking category because it was linked via StumbleUpon. Social networking sites that share links are the primary way many of us access news and information now, why block them all?
The web filtering is done in a central place by the county council and applies to all local authority services but I do wonder when (if ever) they will take a more informed approach to internet filtering. Personally I think it should be left up to each service to control their access. I think employees should be treated as adults and told what is and is not acceptable use. Most monitoring software is capable of seeing how much time you spend on websites, so anything out of the ordinary should be dealt with accordingly. I also think social networking should not be singled out. What is the difference between posting a funny picture on your Facebook wall and emailing it to your friends or posting it to your blog? Is time spent on Facebook any more wasteful than time spent reading the news or doing some online banking? What about coffee or smoking breaks? I take neither so how about letting me spend 5 minutes to catch up on Twitter?
Social networking is not a fad. It is already incorporated into a huge number of businesses and there are thousands of jobs dedicated to it. We should be embracing this technology not treating it as a disease. Kids should be studying it, schools should be using it as a tool to raise attainment and strengthen interactions with students and parents.
Urgh. I know I’ve moaned about this sort of thing before but I felt the need for another moan. If I didn’t have my private internet connection via 3G I would moan a lot more often!
I have thought about this long and hard. I have a friend who is just completing some research on using twitter as communication tool with his gcse classes and surprise suprise the twitter group have done much better than the non twitter kids.
I fear that this banning of ‘social networks’ are being ordered by the same kind of people who don’t understand that you can manage the security of these groups so that randoms can’t access it. I fear that we are being ruled by people who have never used these sites and certainly never used them regularly. I hate the thought that these decisions are being made without proper understanding. It makes the profession seem old fashioned and irrelevant to the kids lives of today. No wonder some adults are struggling to get the kids to listen to them.
On the other hand, this summer I have seen some very effective use of blogger which I’m hoping to get going and I’m planning to use a twitter feed running in my lessons to illustrate something (going to have to do it on a non networked internet connection though). If enough of us start using these things effectively, the nonsocial networkers will have to open up…won’t they?
I wanted to start a blog for the games club. Just a place to put links to games, have a high score table, that kind of thing.
So I asked “Bob” if I could have this on the school website. Got a lot of BS about it and said I would have to ask “Ryan” about it, who said I’d have to ask “Julie” about it. All because it was something different with the potential for student interaction.
I would run it all, moderate anything posted by kids (if I even let them post anything).
So anyway, rather than jump through hoops for work, I’ve set up a place on WordPress for it. I am not stupid, I am well aware of child protection issues and what is and is not suitable.
When I finish my degree and finally get qualified I will teach about social networking and not just in a “how to be safe” way, but how to use it and how the world uses it. There is a whole industry based around it, it is the way the internet works these days. Schools are behind the times!
I don’t think I’ll ever really want to move into SLT so I’m counting on people like you to work your way up and kick people up the arse about using new technologies!