The Arms Race
Posted by arvind s grover Thu, 01 Dec 2005 00:57:00 GMT
Social networking sites have sent schools around the country into a tizzy. People have been shocked to see the type of material being posted by students.
In response, many schools with well-thought-out policies on filtering, have started to block many of the sites in question. For some this is a liabilty decision, for others, school is a place for school-designated use of the web, and not much else.
Deeper look: filtering itself creates a new set of challenges. Students are drawn to these websites for reasons many adults can’t understand. Removing access to the sites becomes a small technical hurdle for many students. Their answer, using a web proxy to outsmart the filter, and they are back on their favorite social website. This is a battle that network technologists can’t win. They block more sites, and students find more workarounds; then it begins again.
I call this The Arms Race
Suddenly, the relationship between technologists and students has shifted from collaborative to combative. And in an education context, this is a huge hurdle.
We want students to come with us when they are concerned about online issues, not worried about hiding from us. Yes, of course we think it is a bad idea to post pictures of yourself in your underwear. Yes, it is an awful idea for a 14 year old to post information about where s/he lives. And yes, we still want to know why they do it and how we can all come to an agreement on what would be a more constructive use of these sites.
p.s. a colleague of mine first used the words “the arms race,” but I am trying to expand the context for it
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Another workaround that I have noticed is one that you would find really difficult to block and shows how really useless blocking sites is. High school students at my board are learning to create a VPN on port 80 on a home computer and tunneling out of the board network and on to their home networks with free internet reign.
I agree let’s not ban sites but educate students about them!
Quentin, dead on, students spend their time learning how to avoid the system, instead of engaging with adults on why that particular site may be being used in a harmful way. Instead, let them use the tools, just empower them to use them in postive ways.
By blocking these sites, are we ignoring student voices? Don’t we want to hear what they are interested in, and help guide them?
Sorry, got on my soapbox there. Getting back down now.