Over Filtered Networks

It’s early morning, in a hotel in Houston, and on my way back home for a week in the office. Glorious.

Yesterday, I posted an off-the-top-of-my-head list of barriers that still prevent many educators from integrating Web 2.0 technologies into their teaching and learning practices. The one that seemed to take traction was the over-filtering of school and district networks.

I like the analogy that Neil Winton shared, that we are facing the same problems that occurred with the rise of the printing press, that the elite power factions in society did not want the masses to have the power that information enables. It took me back to pre-gutenberg, when they chained books to the walls of the libraries. Network filters and other “policies” prevent us from making full use of the technology, crippling the opportunities and resulting in a HUGE waste of money.

Travis, makes the point that the digital domain is here to stay, and its where our children go to communicate. Social networks are their future, and to ignore this is down right arrogant. What do schools look like to their students, when they block learners from the information they need, rather than provide it?

How do you loosen the networks? I think that you have to get together as a team of teachers and administrators, and write a plan for exactly how you want to implement it. You want to have your teachers write a weekly blog about their classroom activities. You want students to start turning in their assignment in blogs so that not only do teachers assess them, but their fellow classmates do as well. You want to set up a network where students in your classes communicate with students in other parts of the world to exchange culture information and impressions.

Then you meet with the technology department. Make sure that it is the entire department, not just the network/filter person, including the director of that department. Go in their understanding and express politely in every way that you appreciate the enormous opportunities that have been provided for you and your students by new technologies and that you appreciate their work in making these technologies reliable. Then describe as passionately as you can these things that you want to do and the sites you need unblocked and that you need to have better response on unblocking future sites. Actually, teachers should be able to unblock sites on their end.

I think that it is also important to UNDERSTAND that these people work for you. Their job is to support your instructional practices. Be polite, because they are your partners. But they work for you. If that doesn’t work, then you work your way up. It’s worth the fight. But always treat everyone you work with as your partner. Be as persistent as you are in the classroom. But don’t burn bridges.

2¢ worth!

6 thoughts on “Over Filtered Networks”

  1. Excellent advice, David, and exactly the kind of firm but fair action that good teachers take in their classrooms every day. At the blog.ac.uk meetup one of the points of my session was that you do have to get the buy-in of senior management. Some, notably our American colleagues, disagreed with this, believing in students and teachers being able to take this on alone. I think for the long term it has to be joined up thinking the whole way.

  2. I am a member of district wide Ed Tech Team. While some districts block everything, we will be actively encouraging the use of blogs, wikis and moodle. We feel it is our job to research these new tools, and find ones that are appropriate for the different grade levels. We also feel we need to train teachers, students and parents on how to use them safely (in some cases that they even exist) . On blocking sites – our firewall does block alot – but all a teacher needs to do to unblock a site they wish to use is send an email and we will make sure it gets through. Our philosophy is that we are here for one purpose only to support student learning, and since the classroom teachers have direct impact on learning we are there to support them in their efforts not second guess them, they are the experts we are the support team.

  3. “Actually, teachers should be able to unblock sites on their end.” Now wouldn’t that be a joy to behold! As teaching professionals, it is incumbent on us to act and behave responsibly with regards to the materials we choose to use in the classroom, yet the powers that be don’t seem to trust us very much (Hence, I suppose, the DOPA legislation in USA). It is the age-old conundrum: How do teachers persuade everyone else that they are professionals when they are not treated as such by their employers?

    Ewan is right when he talks about “joined up thinking” when it comes to implementation and change, but all too often those that sense the importance and potential value of new technologies are those at the bottom of the educational food-chain… and therefore the one’s least able to exert any positive influence.

  4. Its about professional trust isn’t it! Remove the mystique of the technology …. our kids are not scared to change and experiment yet we lock networks away as some great mystery. Some don’t want to know, but some do and they should be able to set things up for thir own purposes and needs.
    Some teachers don’t have admin rights to their laptops here in NZ. What does that do to ownership and the chance to learn by playing and experimenting? Kids are allowed and in fact encouraged, to experiment and learn through doing. Yet we lock away the ability to personalise our key professional tool – the laptop.
    It is the same mentality that sometimes drives the overfiltering of networks and internet access.

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