The Best of the Fischbowl 2007

This is a picture taken from Karl Fisch's blog, it is of 9th grade students holding a video conference and live blog session with Daniel Pink author of A Whole New Mind. I read the post from the Best of the Fischbowl 2007 it was for the month of October intitled Two Steps Forwardand More Thoughts on Filtering and Even More on Filtering by Karl Fisch. This post was dicussing internet filtering, Mr. Fisch doesn't like filtering because it blocks out a lot of resources that might be needed for projects due to pop-ups or the category of website. He also feels that there should be levels for overrides to unblock the sites, for example the teachers at Arapahoe High School (where he works)in Centennial Colorado were given an override to unlock sites that can be used for educational purposes. And then the Administration also has a higher level of override that allows them to view more sites. Both of these overrides are logged to see what site was viewed and from what override. Filters also keep classrooms from connecting with the outside world and prevents the expansion of ideas, for example the filters at Arapahoe kept students from viewing Pangea Day

The library uses the same type of filter that Mr. Fisch's school uses the 8e6, and I can understand his frustration with it. I find it frustrating because before students come in to do their homework that is normally what you will find me doing, I always hit the dead end when I go to my blog, email, and facebook because they are considered social sites. Its not that I don't know the override its just a pain to type it in everytime you click on a link or go to another site.

Filters are a pain when doing research because children want current information but half the information is blocked. When a child younger then 18 comes into the library to research they aren't allowed overrides, so the only way they can get information needed is the old fashion way through books. Even then those are hit or miss. For example students have been coming in looking for information on famous African Americans, there are only so many books and when almost every school requires this the books have all ready been checked out, then you add that to the filter and the student can't do their project.

I think that at every level of learning there should be a lesser degree of censorship. If we give all the students the same punishment, then we are telling them as a whole that we don't trust them to think on their own. Filters are equivalent to the banning of books, some of my favorite books are banned because one person didn't like the message that it sent to our youth. Banning websites because of the pop-ups makes it that much harder for our students to get there work done.