The "Un-Internet" and educational application

I posted this to a statewide edu-tech list to which I belong.  I thought I would post here for another avenue of discussion.  This is in response to (or rather, a sharing of) an article published yesterday (Jan 2, 2012).

This article (linked below) is mainly about business practices, but I can see some of the same discussions surfacing in education circles regarding content (bandwidth not withstanding and bandwidth quickly becoming a non-issue), blocked sites, etc.  Sure, we have CIPA and COPPA to contend with, but the days of "Network Nazism" are quickly coming to an end. As well they should be.  I enjoy seeing the emergence of actual Technology Committees at various districts: Administrators, teachers, community members all reviewing sites submitted by teachers and students to be reviewed for educational use.  This has worked very well in the district for which I am one of the "community members."  In fact, we recently blocked one site and opened another based on that group's input.  We have to protect our students, but we also have to realize that our teachers and students *ARE* the users/customers, and unless we work WITH them, they will find ways to work around or without us.

 

http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/01/the-un-internet/