To filter or not to filter?

This week I was posed this question: “Is it more unethical to allow threats to students/schools (see list above) or to deny students/teachers access to instructionally-relevant Web-based tools and content?” It took me a few days to think about this considering I am one of those people who always hopes for a happy medium in most cases. From my personal experience I would say it is more unethical to deny students/teachers access to instructional Web-based tools or content. Some people will maybe be horrified to hear this when they think about all the inappropriate materials on the Web, but I have several reasons for going this direction. Numerous times when I have been teaching, I am unable to access materials that I could have used in my class. The filtering software is okay, but it prevents me from accessing instructional tools or useful videos. Also, you can use all the filtering materials you want, but it does not block out all the bad content. For example, one of my students was on google.com searching for images of an animal. Not only did he find lots of pictures of what he was looking for, but there were also vulgar/pornographic images that showed up. Now, I am not saying that there should be no filtering/protection for computers. I think that every computer should have anti-virus software to keep the computer from being hacked or infected since that can be costly to fix. 

One tool that can be very useful for educators is blogging. Many schools, however, block blogging sites. In the article, Blogging?  It’s Elementary, My Dear Watson! (http://www.educationworld.com/a_tech/tech/tech217.shtml), Author Lorrie Jackson explores the use of blogging in the classroom. Blogging in the classroom allows teaches to communicate with students, students to communicate with one another, and can be use in a variety of instructional areas.  Jackson points out that students have a hard time when they are not “writing for an audience.” Blogging solves this problem. Students are given a huge audience when they write on a blog. Jackson also lists various sites that are safe for student blogging. It seems to me that over time, schools have implemented more and more rules for the internet to the point where its almost unusable. As Shelly, Gunter, and Gunter state in Integrating Technology and Digital Media in the Classroom, there are “four prongs” (p. 494) to controlling internet use in classrooms. One of these “prongs” is teacher observation. This one interesting me the most because I think teacher observation plays a huge role in student internet use. Rather than the use of filtering software on everything, teachers should be observing what their students are doing. I realize this is not always possible to do, but I feel that it does make a huge difference when teachers are keeping watch over their classroom internet use. Classrooms are using a greater amount of technology on a daily basis which means teaching is changing and also teacher responsibilities. No longer do teachers need to stand at the front of the class and lecture all day. Students are being required to use multiple resources (included those found on the internet) for projects. So, going back to the original question, I would have to say that it is more unethical to prevent students/teacher from access educational materials on the internet. Again, I think there does need to be some compromise and middle ground on this issue, but I would rather my students and I to be able to access what we need rather than not be able to use web-based materials.