Access vs Security - Where does your school fit on the balance?
In this Education Week article it talks about a school in Trussville, Alabama school that allows open access to You Tube, Google searches, online chat, blogging, and other forms of social networking or Web 2.0 tools. In many, if not most schools, this would be considered anathema. This raises the question of access versus security. How much access do you allow students and faculty without compromising security of the network and vital information.
When I was the technology coordinator for a school district we had no filters on the internet (The district was a high school only district). Students and faculty had unfettered access to the entire World Wide Web. I wanted to put monitoring software on the internet pipe so that we could see exactly what was happening but I left the district for a different position prior to a decision being made. Since there was no filter on the internet it required our teachers to be vigilant when they used computers with their classes. They could not let their guard down and that is one good reason against using filters. In some schools teachers think they do not have to monitor students when they use the schools computers because the network has filters.
On my home network I use a filter to protect my own children. I also keep the computer in a centrally located place and have talks with my children about responsible use. I must admit that it is frustrating at times when innocuous websites get blocked and I have to disable the filter.
Scott Mcleod, a technology blogger and the Director of the UCEA Center for the Advanced Study of Technology Leadership in Education, posted this on his Mind Dump blog:
Justin Reich, a former high school teacher and a doctoral student at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, writes that filters are especially skilled at blocking out one group of Internet users at schools: teachers. Students, he says, know how to get around the filters, while teachers have no idea how to go about accessing blocked material online.
Students for the most part can get around filters. But that is only part of the problem. Many students are coming to school with a web-enabled cell phone or smartphone and they do not need to use the schools network to access the web. How do you monitor their web surfing habits while on school grounds?
What should school districts do to protect their students, protect the district from liability, and not impede the educational process? The Education Week article says this about the school in Alabama and the approach they have taken to address the access vs security problem:
...in Trussville and other like-minded school systems, educators and school boards are instead expanding access to online resources, including social-networking sites, for students and teachers. Instead of blocking the many exit ramps and side routes on the information superhighway, they have decided that educating students and teachers on how to navigate the Internet’s vast resources responsibly, safely, and productively—and setting clear rules and expectations for doing so—is the best way to head off online collisions.
I am a strong proponent of educating students and parents in responsible use when it comes to technology and I like the approach the school in Alabama is taking, but I am not sure if that is enough. I would like to see ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, create a .K12 domain for schools. Higher education institutions all have .edu domains for their web addresses. Why can't we create a .K12 domain and require strict rules and oversight for allowing anyone to create a website using the domain? If all school related sites created a .K12 domain then it would be very easy to restrict access to those websites. I am sure Google would find it in their best interest to create a .K12 Google website along with the other major web players. I don't know anyone at ICANN to bring my idea to, but if you know of anyone please pass along my idea. In the meantime there are some good discussions to be had around this topic in school districts as mobile internet devices proliferate across the country.
Comments [0]