BHS Needs to Trust Students, Unblock Internet
At some point in your career as a student at Berkeley High, you have undeniably tried to access a seemingly benign website during downtime in class or after school in the library or College Career Center. Suddenly you find yourself faced with a formidable gray screen and glaring red letters reading ACCESS DENIED.
You’re thinking, “What? I just want to find a photo for my paper / get some found footage / look up a good joke to tell my teacher. Why is this website blocked?” Admittedly, many students log on solely for the purpose of attempting to check Facebook or MySpace. Many computer-based classes are confronted with the issue of the distracting qualities provided by the Internet, and in these cases, blocks are necessary, at least on social networking sites. Quite often, however, academically relevant websites are blocked due to file hosting or photo / video content. As a media-conscious high school, many lessons are presented to us in a video format. Many of these videos reside on the Internet, on sites like YouTube, which underwent a temporary lift near the beginning of Winter Break. YouTube is the largest social forum for videos, educational and pointless alike. Sites like Flickr and Photobucket are also multifaceted but helpful, owing to the fact that photos stored on those websites are easily embedded in BHS-related sites like bhmoodle.com. To limit access to a user– and student–friendly site like these is a vast hindrance to teachers and students. Media classes are in need of access to video hosting and streaming websites — whether to show found footage or alumni videos. Historically, mathematically, and scientifically important images are blocked, even in a simple Google search. In a school full of visual learners, this can present a serious problem, as well as an inconvenience for teachers trying to reach out to all learning styles.
Now you might be asking yourself, “Who decides what websites to block and where do they get their authority?” It is not Mr. Slemp who is blocking your friend’s video blog or your favorite entertainment website. Our Internet control is outsourced to a company called Lightspeed Systems, which is responsible for monitoring Internet activity for other schools and organizations. There are also positions set up within our school to regulate Internet activity. However, once blocked, websites are not barred forever. It is relatively easy to submit a website for review (and this factor gives teachers slight control over what is accessed in their classrooms), but don’t get your hopes up for Facebook getting through.
Of course, unblocking all the currently blocked websites could lead to serious attention span problems in class: imagine trying to teach a roomful of kids with fast, easy access to Facebook. For a school already fighting cell phones with Internet access, the thought is formidable. Though social networking sites like Facebook are the easiest way for many teachers to connect to their students, since it is only the rare student who checks their email regularly, having it unblocked at school will lead to student and staff distraction. So much class time is already wasted on students’ personal lives. Teachers are paid to teach, not to baby–sit or discipline.
There is also the concern of the threat of consciously or unconsciously downloading a virus or other malware. That, perhaps, is the biggest reason why so many websites are blocked. There is actually a federal law regarding content filtering called the Child Internet Protection Act, which mandates blocking harmful sites (child pornography or other vulgar content) from children. Complying with this policy saves BUSD about $100,000 a year from eRate, the company that provides telephone and Internet access for BUSD. Another major concern is about bandwidth use: the district only has so much data use available. Video and photo streaming sites are heavy and use a lot of data. If Berkeley High uses too much bandwidth, Internet access is decreased severely for other schools in the district. However, the district is working on making more bandwidth available, perhaps to accommodate unlocking some of these websites.
Our current situation calls for a compromise: give YouTube and Google a break, keep social networking on lock. Both sites have enough of a value to balance out potential downsides. We need to consider the positive along with the negative. Not all of our students are immature enough to abuse the powerful and helpful resource that is the Internet. Not all of it needs to be restricted. Maybe teachers could be given more direct control over what can be accessed in their classrooms, by entering a pass code or other authorization method instead of waiting for their request to be approved. There is a solution to these harsh regulations. A future of increased bandwidth and relaxed content filtering is approaching, students. Fear not.
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