Random Thoughts from the Dark Side - Filtering Digital Education

For a while I was on the fence again. I couldn't decide which side of the filters debate I stood on. Are filters really bad, evil, horrible things that spell out "censorship" if played backwards? Or, are they a common-sense safety issue, much like asking your child to put their helmet on before they go for a bike ride? After much thought I've decided I'm against the over-use of filters. I feel that a little filtering should be in place, especially for very young learners, but that no filter is ever going to replace sound teaching. And any filter that stands in the way of teaching and learning, is a dangerous thing.

The Dark Side of Filtering - Enter Darth Filterer

I have moments of concern about the false sense of security that filters create. I am suspicious of the fear-mongering that educators are forced to endure when it comes to their
student's safety. And, I shake my head at the notion of protecting adolescents from themselves (as if MySpace and Facebook were some sort of Lord of the Flies scenario waiting to happen.)
If I were artistic, I might ink out a little cartoon of a line-up of kids leaving a school, covered from head to toe in bubble wrap. Their eyes have blinders on, and their ears are stuffed with cotton. The heading might read, "Since the filters couldn't go with them...."

In this weeks readings, one statement stood out above the rest (most likely because I had never heard anyone approach filtering in this way before). Stephen Abram's suggests, in his article,
Justifying the Social Tools: Improving the Conversation (2007), that we should really question what is being blocked and why:

"Those folks who choose to block social networking sites for good reasons should be required to make those reasons explicit and to prove how their approach encourages good learning results and doesn't over-reach. I've seen too many
instant messaging sites banned for vague or unsupportable reasons such as viruses or stalkers."

I agree that it is important to question what learning opportunities are being compromised by the sites that are blocked. But, I wonder who will argue against excuses such as virus prevention and threat of stalkers? It is like a trump card held by the powers that be, and it seems the only counter-argument strong enough to challenge over-zealous blocking is to argue that filtering itself is unsafe.

Mary Ann Bell argues this exact point in I'm Mad and I'm Not Gonna Take it Anymore (2008). Bell says, "[n]ot allowing access can be dangerous, as it keeps us from teaching kids to be safe and smart online when they are on their own" (p.3). Also, educators seldom state that the real dangers on the Net happen to kids outside of school. Filtering in school, then, seems more about educators wearing the blinders instead of the students. If the issues don't come up in the classroom, then maybe they don't exist - or, if they don't come up, then we won't have to deal with them. To me this approach screams of negligence at the highest level.

Students worlds are different then when we were in school, but the big scary issues have always been there (sexual predators, bullies, etc.). We can't hide our heads in the sand when it comes to these issues, and blocking them out is like closing the door to the skeletons in our societal closet and denying they exist. To me, it is imperative that we are open and honest with students, that we discuss safe on-line behaviour frequently. That we invite students into the discussions about their own on-line safety, instead of having the fight for them with regards to safe or unsafe filtering.

The Annoying Side of Filtering - My Light Saber Won't Work!

The school division I worked for last year had very strict filtering levels in place. I felt like I was constantly running up against roadblocks in my teaching. I was told that if I wanted a site unblocked, I had to apply for a tech request to lift the block. This seems easy enough to do, but when you are juggling all that has to be juggled in the ordinary day to day of teaching in a school library, that extra step becomes a nuisance. Needing to send a tech request in for a 3 minute video to be unblocked seemed ludicrous and a waste of everyone's time.

I found it very frustrating to work in this overly-filtered environment where many Web 2.0 tools could not be used or viewed. I resented the fact that the "higher ups" didn't have enough faith in my own professional judgment to either:

1. Unblock sites myself that I needed for educational purposes.
2. Have someone at my school remove the block.
3. Be trusted to direct students to safe, educational, curriculum-related sites.

Further Random Thoughts

• Internet filters, are like coffee filters. You want the grit taken out, but the flavour to remain.
• Filters "protect" our children only so far. Parents need to be taught practical tips for raising Internet safe kids. I think teacher librarians can play a vital role in educating parents about the risks of on-line interactions (it takes a global village...)
• Acceptable Use Policies are like field trip forms saying you give permission for your child to be taken out into the world for educational purposes - but a signed piece of paper doesn't ensure that your child won't sprain an ankle in the real world, or come across questionable content in the virtual one.
• Acceptable Use Policies need to be written in an accessible manner. I wonder what would happen if students were asked to write them? We need to make sure that teachers, parents, and children understand what they are signing, so it doesn't just become another piece of paper.
• There are a lot of gatekeepers doing what's supposedly best for kids. . . .but I have to question: is someone getting rich off of this? Have we been manipulated to believe our kids are in danger on the Net? Have school boards been manipulated by filter software companies to believe filters will protect them from irate parents ready to sue them for exposing their child to the evils of the net? Where are these irate parents?
• Why bother to invest in new technology if all we're really comfortable with is word processing? Why not bring back the typewriter?
• The safety issue shouldn't be about exposure - but lack of experience in dealing with exposure.

Final Thoughts, and One Anecdote - Trust in the Force

I truly believe students can rise to the occassion of social responsibility as they grow and learn with Web 2.0 technologies. Reactionary blocking based on fear of the darker side of the web must be questioned. I recently observed a Facebook group directing hatred towards a student by other students. It would do little good for educators to swoop in and block access to such a site (after all, educators can't block home computers, and it is unlikely that the group was started within the school walls). What actually happened was that another student from the same town (now away at university) stepped in and said the site was very uncool and wrong. I don't know if the students who started the site were humbled or not, but hopefully they will think twice before doing it again. I think in such a situation we can not act alone as educators - this is a community issue (on-line and off). Parents, teachers, and students themselves need to find their way in this new world. We need moral codes of conduct that transcend the walls of the school, and filters simply can't do that.

You Tub[ing] in the Family and then at School

It's funny with new technologies--they become such a part of our lives that we forget just how new they really are. I was amazed to read on Wickipedia that YouTube was created in 2005. Not that long ago--and yet it has become a part of our daily life in much the way that the radio plays in the car when we run our errands, or the TV goes on to relax before bed.

Personal Context

I was first introduced to You Tube last year by my husband who loves to look up clips of 'classic' old TV programs like Get Smart, You Bet Your Life, Ed Sullivan and so forth. Its a pop culture treasure chest. Even tonight before the boys went to bed, they and their dad spent some quality time together looking up performances by the Beatles, Buddy Holly, and Elvis. Together they chat about the people/performers and often connect them to a timeline that involves other family members. For example they'll get a kick out of a TV Batman clip from when their Uncle was their age. They also are making connections to other media, including books, that they come across in the clips. They were especially impressed that the actor who played Grandpa Max in the recent film version of one of their favourite cartoon stories - Ben 10 - played the Six Million Dollar Man when he was much younger. My middle son (5 years old) has bookmarked a couple of videos about Star Wars Transformers, where basically the person putting on the video holds the transformer up and talks about its components. It's like a new-age show-and-tell, and my son is completely hooked. My husband and I are very aware of the inappropriate content that is too easily stumbled upon. Even though our computer is in a space of high traffic in our household - some clips slip through. I'm thinking particularly of a scene from Episode Three of Star Wars where there is a particularly gory scene. We've told both boys that they need to be older to watch it on DVD - but they have caught bit sof it as they surf through Star Wars toy and information sites.

Oh, the Places You Can Go with TeacherTube!!

I was excited to see this simple TeacherTube video called Our Favorite Robert Munsch Books at http://www.teachertube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=847c5c211be6ec4b96b0. It is not complicated but very effective: the student's drawings of their favorite books are shown then they explain why that book was their favourite.

Another wonderful example of what students and teachers can view or create on TeacherTube is more complex but replicates the type of quality we can be striving for. It is rather long, but try watching just for a few moments, it's worth it! The Cat and the Hat Meets the Grinch:

Safety Concerning Me

Before watching An Anthropological Introduction to YouTube, by Michael Wesch, I felt YouTube had enormous potential in the classroom. That potential included access to video clips that could be used to enhance teaching and learning. Safety here did not concern me because I would ensure that students did not have "free range" over the site. I imagine that I would be showing them a clip that was previewed for appropriateness.

An exciting aspect of YouTube was the potential to create meaningful videos that could be viewed by other students around the world. But the more I watched Michael Wersch take us through the wonderful world of YouTube, the more wary I became. There are so many "what ifs" with YouTube. What if our innocent video was mashed up and remade and became subject to what Michael Wesch called "context collapse?" What if our little video took off and gained a life of its own that made us uncomfortable? What if an on-line predator was able to identify a student despite our deligent efforts to not use geographically identifying content? And perhaps a common fear for teachers: What if the technology doesn't work when I need it to?

I think the answer for me, and for many of my colleagues, is to take baby steps. Get comfortable with the technology ourselves before bringing it into the classroom. But while we are all about "baby steps" in education, our students, today's generation, is all about leaping in and having a go. They don't read the manual, they learn by trying. The other thing is that the teacher doesn't have to be the authority in the classroom (perhaps something which makes a lot of us uncomfortable); Web 2.0 is all about the social aspect of learning. More than one person takes on the responsibility for understanding and for representation of that understanding. Web 2.0 platforms like YouTube and TeacherTube provide maybe less than ideal platforms, but still real platforms for students and teachers to construct knowledge together and share it with the broad and diverse audience that is the Web.

Last Rant About Filters

As I examined YouTube and TeacherTube I had a little thought at the back of my mind, "none of this really matters because I likely won't be able to access it in the elementary school due to restrictions, just like last year..." Then I came across Will Richardson's blog at: http://weblogg-ed.com/ in which my frustration of filters was presented, and his wisdom and eloquence gave me hope. He says:

"I truly believe that filters make our kids less safe. They step off the bus into unfiltered worlds with no context for making good decisions about the stuff coming at them. It’s a huge problem. But on some levels, the bigger problem is what we are doing to our teachers. It insults the profession to not at the very least provide desktop overrides for teachers when they bump up against a filtered site. Have a policy in place to deal with incidents where teachers make poor choices if that’s what the concern is. Seriously, am I missing something? Why is that so hard to implement? The only way we’re going to get students, or teachers, to master the Web is to let them use it."

I am hopeful to see a future where more administrators and school boards take such words to heart. I can't help but feel that YouTube and TeacherTube are only the beginning...