I’d like an idiocy filter, please

I received the e-mail below from yet another

person who can’t access my blog at school

. How is CASTLE supposed to help school

administrators kickstart their schools into the 21st century if they can’t even

read one of our primary communication channels?

The idea that all blogs should be categorically blocked – that NOT A SINGLE

ONE of the over 100 million blogs out there might have something important or

relevant to educators – is both ludicrous and shameful. This type of blocking is

not required by CIPA and it’s just plain dumb (see also I don’t

like Internet filters

).

Dr. McLeod,

I read your “D.I.” (a constant reminder just in those

two words), but I am unable to click through from school (as I tried today). You

must be so dangerous that I really shouldn’t even be reading you to  begin with

(tongue in cheek).

The atomic-bomb-to-kill-flea net filter that is used

here blocks anything in the “web log” area. I am dangerous as well, since my own

blogger rants about soccer are blocked.

My other item to vent with you

about is the school’s new wi-fi network – it is completely blocked from student

use (around 15 teachers use it daily). They spent a lot of money on it, and then

locked it up so no one could use it. As you suggest many times in D.I., it is

easy to become irrelevant – I have seen a few Iphone users on campus that don’t

even need wi-fi. And when I even slightly suggest to the tech guys that blocking

access may not be trusting the students enough, they circle the wagons quickly

and become very defensive.

Did I mention that teachers are not allowed

access to any networked drive for fear of student access and destruction of

data?
I’m sure you have heard of much worse, so I will stop.

Anyway,

if you didn’t know, you are a troublemaker according to my school. 😉

Keep up the good work.

I plan to read some of your longer

writings this weekend where my own wi-fi network is completely

UN-blocked.

Teachers that aren’t allowed access to any networked drives. An

expensive Wi-Fi investment that no one can use. Who is steering the ship here?

How can this district’s administrators possibly show their face to their

community and justify how they have used taxpayer money? This is horrible.