[Year 12 IT Apps] OT Internet Access

Margaret Lawson margaret.lawson at konstantkaos.net
Sun Jan 13 13:15:22 EST 2008


Perhaps VITTA can put together a position statement representative of 
members views, and put it forward to various government representatives

:)

Margaret

Brian Lennon wrote:
> For my sins I also teach VCE Chemistry. I find since we shifted to 
> this type of internet access system, at least half of the chem sites I 
> use or I send my students to, have been excluded for reasons like they 
> have a conferencing area and chat rooms are excluded automatically. 
> The system is truly appalling. I would suggest sending emails to Rudd 
> as an advocate of the internet, but the federal Labor government is 
> also on the idiotic censorship bandwagon.
> I had the opportunity to have lunch with Nicholas Negroponte at the 
> time when Alston was the responsible minister, and was embarrassed by 
> the reception Nicholas got from Alston. Alston raved on about 
> censoring the net, passing up the chance to learn something from the 
> head of the MIT Media Lab. Nicholas said that an aide every so often 
> would suggest to the minister that he thought that they couldn't 
> actually do the latest thing he was suggesting. Negroponte was more 
> bemused than insulted but I felt obliged to apologise anyway.
> Wouldn't it be nice to have the occasional pollie or apparatchik with 
> more between the ears than cheap shots?
>
> Brian Lennon
>
>
> Margaret King Iaquinto wrote:
>> Let's take this a step further --
>>
>>  Who polices these policemen?
>>
>> On whose desk does the buck stop?
>>
>> Somebody has to make the decision to allow/disallow certain sites. 
>> Who are they?
>>
>> One teacher who has commented to this list on a number of occasions 
>> said that her students went to search for information about the SDLC. 
>> And the sites were blocked.
>>
>> Say what?
>>
>> The SDLC is part of our study design.
>>
>>
>> Maggie
>> VK3CFI
>>
>> On Sun Jan 13 8:41 , Russell Edwards sent:
>>
>>
>>     On 13/01/2008, at 6:55 AM, Maggie Iaquinto wrote:
>>
>>     > Yes, Russell. This all sounds like the 'Great Firewall of China'.
>>     >
>>
>>     Actually, it is a lot, lot worse than Chinese Internet censorship.
>>     Theirs is a blacklist. Ours is a whitelist. Because the internet is
>>     vastly larger than what can be practically hand-checked, it's
>>     impossible for any list to cover a significant fraction it.
>>
>>     Actual numbers are pretty uncertain but as rough guide:
>>
>>     Number of sites on the internet: ~100 million
>>     Number of sites allowed by the Education Channel: 200,000
>>     Number of sites blocked by Chinese Communist Party: 20,000
>>
>>     Fraction of sites blocked by Communist Party: 0.02%
>>     Fraction of sites blocked by DEECD: 99.8%
>>
>>     As you can see, what is left for Chinese citizens can still
>>     reasonably
>>     be called "the Internet". This is not the case for Education
>>     Channel-
>>     only provision.
>>
>>     Russell Edwards
>>     Whittlesea Secondary College
>>
>>     >
>>     > -----Original Message-----
>>     > From: itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au
>>     <javascript:top.opencompose('itapps-bounces at edulists.com.au','','','')>
>>     on behalf of Russell Edwards
>>     > Sent: Sat 1/12/2008 8:21 PM
>>     > To: Year 12 IT Applications Teachers' Mailing List
>>     > Subject: Re: [Year 12 IT Apps] OT Internet Access
>>     >
>>     >
>>     > On 12/01/2008, at 1:26 PM, murch at tpg.com.au
>>     <javascript:top.opencompose('murch at tpg.com.au','','','')> wrote:
>>     >
>>     > > Hello all. We have just changed service providers and both
>>     staff and
>>     > > students have been blocked
>>     > > from so many sites. Staff have to get the technicians to give
>>     them
>>     > > access to sites that they may
>>     > > want. So, we have different access rights but only on individual
>>     > > requests. It is so annoying
>>     > > because most of the web 2.0 that I want to use is blocked.
>>     >
>>     >
>>     > It sounds like you might be on an Education Channel-only policy for
>>     > students, as is my school. It is a whitelist filter: everything is
>>     > blocked by default, only hand-selected sites are allowed. They
>>     won't
>>     > answer my emails for figures but based on what I could dig up,
>>     about
>>     > 99.8% of sites are blocked. It is appalling and by no stretch
>>     of the
>>     > imagination should be referred to as "internet" provision. I
>>     could go
>>     > on and on and on about why it's bad, specifically how it goes
>>     against
>>     > VELS and PoLT and every other fashionable buzzword, and have
>>     done so.
>>     > At my school we convinced everyone who needed to be convinced
>>     but in
>>     > the end it comes down to liability, and the policy remains.
>>     >
>>     > The EC-only policy should be officially deprecated or banned by the
>>     > department but instead they encourage it. As far as I can tell
>>     it is
>>     > 0% driven by pedagogy, 0% by genuine concern for student
>>     welfare, and
>>     > 100% legal backside-covering. Both the Department and principals/
>>     > schools/technicians are trying to duck liability. Maybe IT teachers
>>     > should encourage parents to take a class action against the
>>     Department
>>     > for *not* providing proper internet connectivity. That might shake
>>     > some sense into them.
>>     >
>>     > Russell Edwards
>>     > Whittlesea Secondary College
>>     >
>>     >
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-- 
Margaret Lawson

Educational Technologist
Training * Workshops * Ideas

margaret.lawson at konstantkaos.net

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