Week 1 - Blog Posting #2 - Learning 2.0

Just this morning, I stumbled on this article in Education Week:


Filtering Fixes by Kathleen Kennedy Manzo
District leaders make changes to offer greater online access to students.

In the article, one teacher remarks, "I’m a big advocate for experiential learning, but it’s kind of hard to teach Internet etiquette or rules of how to act and interact online without exposing them to the stuff that’s out there,” Mr. Jenkins said. “It’s hard to teach those things in a vacuum.”(Manzo, 2009) While the article does focus on teaching children responsible internet behavior and learning how to be safe, it does point out the penny-wise, pound-foolish policy of the use of some filters. “We believe that you can’t have goals about kids’ collaborating globally and then block their ability to do that,” said Becky Fisher, the[...]technology coordinator."

The article also shows two interesting tables (shown above this post). Classroom lessons and assignments aren't the only things that suffer at the heavy hand of web filters: in a Twitter message this morning, @wbasinger tweets: "Internet filters and old software make PD [professional development] a real challenge" (twitter.com).

Let's see if any of my sites are unblocked today.

References:

Kennedy Manzo, K (2009, August 31). Filtering Fixes. Education Week, Retrieved 2009, September 2, from http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2009/09/02/02filter_ep.h29.html?tkn=QN[FwPR%2BcQ5C163IrJXxrec3ENEZu1KEL9H9

"wbasinger", (2009, September 1). Twitter.com: @wbasinger. Retrieved September 3, 2009, from Twitter Web site: http://twitter.com/wbasinger/status/3695823916