As we begin another seemingly very useful course on our way towards a Master's in Educational Technology I am becoming more and more frustrated by the restrictions I encounter while trying to implement elements from this program in my classroom. Much of what I have learned about technology and what I can do with it as a teacher has been very exciting, however when I get to school I find that numerous roadblocks are in place preventing its use. As I begin my first blog and investigate its educational uses and merits I am saddened by the fact that I can't use it from school. All websites classified as blogs are blocked on our network! A nice little message comes up saying that the website is blocked for the sole reason of it being a blog. Do you realize how many blogs come up in Google search results? I do, and it is a lot, because I get blocked every time I click on one. Along these same lines, if I find a nice little YouTube clip to use in my class, forget it. YouTube is blocked as well, including any YouTube videos that are embedded in other pages. If I want to use a video from YouTube I have to download it through keepvid and save it to disk at home in order to show it at school. This is fine, but it limits some of the off-the-cuff teachable moments we all love. The other day in class a student was talking about learning in Science that pure sodium metal explodes in water. Without YouTube it was pretty difficult to find a video of this to share.
In addition to our network restrictions, our hardware is beginning to become more and more of an issue for any work done on computers. Not only are our computer labs unable to accommodate our large class numbers one-to-one, but the computers are also horribly slow to work on making it hard to accomplish enough during one class period. Maybe the fact that we are such a small school will make a one-to-one laptop/netbook initiative easier to push through in the near future, but it will be a tough sell with the current budget situation. One can dream, right?
On the positive side, we do have some access. My Eighth Graders just finished their first ever Web 2.0 project. Students were assigned to groups across sections and created a biography of a famous mathematician on Wikispaces.com. While their work is not perfect, I was very pleased with the work they did, especially considering it was their first experience in this work environment. Students did an awesome job of learning how to use the tools available to upload pictures and embed video to supplement their pages, and they even worked on it over Christmas break! It also gave them a chance to learn about the importance of watching for plagiarism, citing their sources, and being respectful while working in a wiki format. It was somewhat sad, though, to break the news to an eager student that her YouTube video about Pythagoras on her page looked great from home, but her classmates couldn't see it when she tried to show them at school because the powers that be don't think we should be allowed to see it.
Check out my students wikispaces project at http://mathhistory8.wikispaces.com/
I have the same frustrations that you have. Blocking of certain sites such as YouTube is very frustrating. YouTube is very instructional and a great place to go for educational purposes. Without filters students can access web-sites that are not educational. It is a problem that does not have an easy solution. Technology is changing a rapid pace, but funding for technology is hard to come by. It is frustrating to know that students are missing out of a great education because schools cannot afford technology.
ReplyDeleteI'm at the opposite end of the spectrum. Since my classroom is located on a university - most things aren't blocked! Although that gives me a lot more freedom as an educator - it also means I have to watch my students MUCH more closely! (You know they are up to something when you walk by the computers and all the internet windows suddenly minimize...)
ReplyDeleteI understand your frustrations! I know of teachers who have begun assembling useful web sites and providing sound educational rationales for NOT blocking them. If enough teachers make the cases together, often [not always] administration will listen and unblock sites. It is worth a try since, as you note, many sites have profound educational uses for helping your students learn.
ReplyDeletebtw: I love your students' wiki pages. They did an outstanding job for their first attempt! This is the type of project you can show administrators to make cases for increased access.
ReplyDeleteThere is always going to be some blocking in schools because of CIPA. Having said that, there should be little blocked for teachers. I have pushed hard every day to have the tech guys unblock various sites. Emailing the right person with a good reason for its use in class always seems to work. Maybe just asking is the way to go.
ReplyDeleteI can't agree with you more! It seems like every time I turn around something I want to use in class is blocked because someone decided to make it that way. We go to conference, workshops, and various meetings were we are always being told that we need to adapt our teaching to the way our students learn. How on earth do they expect to have us do this when we can't even access basic information and websites through the school's network. There must be an easier way....
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