Friday, March 26, 2010

Internet censorship

..and how it harms schools
One teacher wanted to show students some pictures that would illustrate the effects of atomic testing. "However when I went to bring the Wikipedia page up at school during class, it was blocked by our internet filter, BESS. The name of the islands? 'Bikini Atoll,'" said Doug Johnson, quoting the teacher. Johnson, a director of media and technology at a Minnesota school district, put out a call in July for stories about how Internet filtering hobbles education, and got an earful.

(interesting point being made in the comments about teaching kids to elude bureaucracy...'though I don't think that's quite what anyone is intending to teach them.)

1 comment:

Joe said...

After (last years?) kerfuffle with the teacher who was accused of showing porn to students I would *never* do any surfing live in front of students, no matter what I was searching for. I'd make sure to bookmark (even pre-load) stuff ahead of time. You never know what you're going to get online.