Web Blogs and Me

The day I joined Mac Using Educators was the first day I ever did anything with a Web Log. I didn’t even realize the difference between a web page and a “blog.” After a few months of writing for Bill Palmer, I created my own blog page too. A lot of us have done that. Once you get started you just can’t help yourself.

At first, I just wanted a blog for my own articles. When you put your column up at Mac Using Educators, it gets mixed in with all the other people’s work. If I refer a friend, or ask my class to read a column that I have written, I have the option of sending them directly to my site. That way I don’t get, “I went there, but I didn’t see your column, but maybe I just didn’t scroll down far enough.”

Immediately there were problems here at school. Public schools get money from the Federal Government for internet access. But, we cannot have that money without strings attached. We are required to filter our internet access. What schools in our area do is subscribe to a central filter service. We decide what general categories are blocked and then students cannot do online gambling and the like. But, blogs were blocked. I couldn’t read columns and I couldn’t post them.

We have a process to appeal a blocked site and I used it. I can post to my blog, my students can read it, and everything is fine. Well, almost everything. We just had Spring Break, and somebody, somewhere, changed something. Now BillPalmer.net is blocked… What do these filters know about Bill that I don’t?

I hate censorship. Whenever I go to a site that is blocked, I am annoyed. I hear stories from my colleagues all the time about legitimate sites that are blocked. Yes, you can get sites un-blocked, but the process never can happen in a time frame that is convenient. If you spend days setting up a Web Quest by doing research at home, you may find that it won’t work in school because you have to wait a couple of weeks to get the sites unblocked. Talk about a buzz kill…

People use blogs for a ton of different reasons. Some blogs are personal journals, some are photo essays. Our Pediatric Parent Advisory Council at the hospital (parentadvisorycouncil.blogspot.com) has one for parents and families of children with chronic health problems. We set it up while talking on the phone one evening. We had three pieces up in a half hour. Now we can use it as a resource when we give presentations. By the way, I can’t see it at school, it is blocked…

On the other hand, if we don’t filter, we don’t get the government subsidy for internet access. Also, our students look at porn. That would be bad.

The truth is, I would like to do web logs with my students. I would like them to be able to write a web log, work on it together as a class, and post it. I might be able to do it too. But I will have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops first. These are the kinds of issues that make teachers give up. I haven’t given up yet, but I am being realistic.