[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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>> >
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>>
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>
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--
Margaret Lawson
Educational Technologist
Training * Workshops * Ideas
margaret.lawson at konstantkaos.net
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