Comments on: Eleven GOOD Reasons not to ban social networking sites

By: Dan

Dan — Sun, 25 May 2008 16:09:00 +0000

I feel slightly late in responding to this... but I'm going to reply anyway.

I feel constantly frustrated by the attitudes of the YHGfL and their blacklists of website. Every social networking website is blocked by the YHGfL, which makes using them in the classroom impossible. They also block YouTube, which constantly frustrates me. A few weeks ago I was trying to do a speaking & listening piece with Y10 based around Room 101. Not as many students had seen the show as I had anticipated. The simplest thing to do would have been to pop on youtube and share some examples with the class. I'd be able to do this in Barnsley, and Derbyshire, but I can't in Sheffield.

A student pipes up with "use a proxy sir, then you can get around it!". I'm lucky enough to be ICT-literate to be able to use a proxy, but we are banned from doing so by SMT in school. Instead I had to go home, download the video, stick it on my USB which runs Portable Apps, with Portable VLC and show it to the class the week later.

All the students are capable of getting around the YHGfL proxy server through their own proxy servers. They can all get on the social networking websites, youtube, and some of the more unsavoury elements of the web. Yet those who want to use it for legitimate education reasons aren't allowed to.

Instead of blocking websites, we should be educating students how to use these website safely. By blocking them we simply provide them with a challenge!

By: Sheila Webber

Sheila Webber — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:50:00 +0000

I suppose one key part of the brochure is “However, schools should be aware that a disclaimer is not sufficient to protect a school from a claim of personal injury and the school needs to ensure that all reasonable actions have been taken and measures put in place to protect users.” i.e. they feel they need to cover themselves in case parents sue them. This certainly doesn’t seem the way to help young people become information literate – and using computers just for education is dull! I mean, not that education can’t be enjoyable, but …..

By: Mary Plain

Mary Plain — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:09:00 +0000

thanks for this DrJoolz. as ever you said what I wanted to say! I am doing a talk in a few days about the so-called digital divide, Web2, social networking so this is going to be SOOO helpful.

By: DrJoolz

DrJoolz — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:24:00 +0000

Thanks K this is reassuring. I sometimes think I am on my own in spouting the need to educate about all this stuff.
The Kent people were quite scary to me.

By: Karl

Karl — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 22:29:00 +0000

Well, I know nothing about teaching but I think your first reason should be enough to persuade anyone that banning isn’t the answer. And, even though I know nothing, I’m going to say that this article seems very well considered and rounded. More than can be said for Kent’s blunt instrument approach. Very interesting Doctor.