Tuesday is Safer Internet Day in schools across the U.K.

We so desperately need to think, and act, on how we protect our young learners.

I am not sure that can be done only through blocking their access to content. We have a responsibility to teach careful, safe, effective surfing and general use of the internet and all of its wonderous resources and tools. We need to raise awareness of what the dangers are, how to deal with them or avoid them, but also to encourage creative, inventive and safe use of the positive aspects. If we leave children unaware of the potential, they will always only use the weaker, elements.

A recent article, from The Institute of Education, investigates the gap between the amount of technology available in homes, and not available in schools, and points out that children are often left “disappointed (but not downbeat)” by school ICT.

Read this excellent and thought provoking post from Tom Barrett, entitled Blocked for you. Open for me.

Our L.A.s are the one who need to be provoked into thinking. There is so much inconsistency in policies and practice.

The aspect of training students effectively is so important. We filter so heavily, in some places, that they are given such a false sense of security, it is no wonder they stumble across undesirable content, when they go home, and search in an unprotected environment.

The internet is a vast resource; a wonderful wilderness of opportunities. There are some dark, unsavoury corners that we need protect our children from, through careful advice as much as monitoring.

YouTube is blocked in the vast majority of educational contexts. It is a HUGE resource and the biggest Aladdin’s Cave of valuable learning material. (How to-s, thought provoking films, an archive of rich value).

One of the biggest reasons (offered) for blocking YouTube, is the comments that are logged in reaction to a lot of films. These can sometimes be written by people with a limited grasp of acceptable English and a desire to shock.

(There are some (somewhat expensive) ways to filter out the comments, such as mentioned in this Times article).

This is a wonderful time to be alive. The internet offers very powerful tools for research, collaboration and interaction. If we, as teachers, come across sites that are truly innocuous and harmless, but enhance good teaching, we shouldn’t sit there and complain without taking action. There are the possibilities of unblocking such sites, on an authority level perhaps.

One thing that Tom is also investigating is what is filtered where. How about adding which sites and tools are open or blocked in your authority? It will build up an interesting picture I am sure.

In our travels around the country, I am always amazed by how varied access is. I am also startled by what is blocked and why: In most authorities, though not all, Noughts and Crosses is blocked! Why? Because it is “A Game”. Evil incarnate.

Even the BBC site CBBC games is blocked in some authorities.

When we try to upload content to the blog, our ftp site is sometimes, though again not always, blocked. This seems illogical to me. We need a password and detailed technical knowledge to enter it. We are uploading content not downloading some kind of strange unknown elements that might digitally corrupt a school computer network.

The ThinkUKnow sites offer some really valuable activities and resources when exploring internet safety. Visit the 5-7 site, 8-10 website , parent pages, and resources for teachers.

There are many other resources out there. For example, the Lancashire grid have some good activities.

We need to think. We need to act. Filtering can feel like action. Is it making us complacent in terms of our responsibilities to children?

All power to Tom’s elbow for investigating “what and where”. And, for raising his voice in the “to block or not to block” debate.

Interestingly, his site, and mine, are sometimes blocked because we are “personal and social networking sites”.

After this… … it was good knowing you… they’re coming to filter me away, a ha… …