When I was
in elementary
school, the teachers gave us these
great green rotary phones that
actually worked.
They sent us out into the hallway
in small groups to practice calling
and answering the phone correctly.
I remember sitting in the classroom
waiting for a fellow student to an-
swer my call. It went something like
this:
Ringing. “Hello?” “Hello. Can I
talk to Davey?” Wait. Listen for
the response: “This is Davey.” Be-
gin the conversation.
It’s true that my parents were probably teaching this too, as they should
have. But there I was in school learning how to use the social media of the
time appropriately. My teacher and
those who came after her didn’t block
me from using it. They taught me how.
Imagine if they had worried only
about all the people who might one day
be asked if their refrigerators were running. Instead, they dared to use their
position as educators to teach me the
correct way to use the technology, and
then they trusted me to go forth and
interact appropriately with the world.
Sure, the stakes may be higher now,
and the reach and presence of social
media and the rest of the internet may
seem overwhelming. But shouldn’t we
still be teaching best practices and ex-
pectations? And shouldn’t we be teach-
ing how to harness the power of social
media and the internet for positive uses?
Sometimes I think we are like the
fictional bird I call an e-stritch. We
stick our e-heads in the sand and
pretend that there is nothing going
on around us. Nothing bad can hap-
pen if we ignore it. We block Twitter,
Facebook, Vine, Google Hangouts,
You Tube, Pinterest, and others. We
pretend that nothing can go wrong
because they are blocked and because
we have a policy.
Students have a policy too. Their policy is that whenever and wherever they
want to, they are going to find a way to
access the internet (#4G #fullbars).
pointcounterpoint
K– 12 schools
that receive E-
Rate funding are
required to have
an internet filter.
Schools don’t have
to use E-Rate, but
they definitely want to. The program,
which is administered under the over-
sight of the Federal Communications
Communication (FCC), provides
discounts of up to 90% for internet ac-
cess at eligible K– 12 schools. And ac-
cording to the FCC’s website, virtually
all K– 12 schools now have internet
access as a result of E-Rate funding.
One of the requirements for E-Rate
funding eligibility is that schools must
comply with the Children’s Internet
Protection Act (CIPA), which mandates
that schools employ “a specific technol-
ogy that blocks or filters internet access.”
Minors must be blocked from accessing
obscene imagery or anything depicting
child pornography, and schools must
monitor the online activities of minors
using the internet at school.
However, there is good news for
those who argue that digital citizenship
cannot be taught in a vacuum. CIPA
compliance was updated in July 2012 to
also require schools to have an internet
safety policy “providing for the educa-
tion of minors about appropriate online
behavior, including interacting with
other individuals on social networking
websites and in chat rooms, and cyber-
bullying awareness and response.”
In an April 2011 interview ( goo.gl/
bnhMN9) with the U.S. Department
of Education’s director of educational
technology, Karen Cator, MindShift
editor Tina Barseghian attempted to
clarify E-Rate eligibility requirements
regarding internet filters. Cator made
some important points about the use
of internet filters in schools. The first
was that broad internet filters are not
useful. Internet filters should not block
entire sites, such as You Tube, all social
media sites, or every site with a game
on it, as many of these contain valu-
able learning resources. The second
point was that websites do not have to
be blocked for teachers, as CIPA does
not require filtering for adults. Cator
added that schools should unblock any
YES
NO
Is It Time to Stop Filtering the Internet at School?
