Arguments Against Webfilters In Schools

Patrick Cloonan, teacher at Manheim School District, reported to Hi-Lite Online that while some websites like YouTube have inappropriate content, it can also have beneficial materials for students. In the text it said, students have better research without web filters. This confirms that students could be asked to do an assignment and the websites that are restricted are not able to be used by those students (“NYT”).

Duff, White & Turner, LLC “ Schools Should Punish Students for Misuse of Networking sites” (Document D). If Schools have dealt with a number of incidents concerning improper use of internet sites should be banned. I believe school computers should be used only for homework and school purposes. The internet being an open network, which includes big Social Networking sites such as Myspace and Facebook of course students are going to pay more attention to that. Schools should restrict all those websites , although there are ways around in which students use to bypass. Schools around the United States have entered into an education code in which it authorizes to expel, suspend, or removal of school. Even though some students might say the school can't get into what they do after or outside of campus. The school can engage in taking charge of conduct resulted in disruption of the school environment. The school may lawfully discipline any student for such

While elementary and middle schools have obvious needs for restrictions, Internet access at the high school level isn't as black and white. High school students are sensitive to their given rights, yet are officially minors under the law; teenagers are ever nearing adulthood, but are sometimes viewed as immature. So, high school administrators are challenged with designing an Internet policy that meets the educational needs of the students and the moral demands of society. Although software is being designed to "censor" the content of the Internet, student trust and responsibility might be a more reasonable route.

The top three filters that are used ar Url-based, keyword-based, and finally blacklist-based. Out of the schools asked the schools said 70% use Url-based filters. This is because the filter goes more in-depth and doesn’t take away from the students learning experience. Url-based is where the filter will search for educational sites and filter out the ones that are not educational. After a list of bad sites has been generated the filter will then block those site from minors accessing them will connected to the schools internet. The second filter type, which is keyword-based, is used in 60% of the schools asked. Keyword-based could be good because the filter reads the whole site and if there are any words that have been blacklisted in the filters software then the filter will block the whole site from minors access. So let's say the website the student was trying to access had a the word, “Pornography” on it the filter would ban the website from viewing. Third, Blacklists, Blacklists have a set list of websites that have been put together by the government that they think the information on the site is harmful to minors and should be blocked from access. When schools were asked if their online content was filtered 98% said content is filtered at school. The question is though to what extent. 94% said they use filtering software such as the

The implication of web filters in schools is a major controversial topic and it has been for many years. One of the reasons we have web filters set up within schools in the first place comes from the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). This act, enacted in 2000, requires that K-12 schools use some form of internet filters as a way to protect students from the potential harm of what they may come across on the internet. This

Columbia Station High School understands that monitoring of Internet activities and technology resources usage are major concerns. Students, while free to use the technology resources, must take ownership of their

It's not a good students fault that there are a couple of bad students looking at explicit websites, so why does two bad kids have to ruin it for an entire school? Good students have to sneak around and use a VPN so they can do research on youtube for a computer class that requires you to watch youtube videos to work on a certain lesson.

Students will be able to access more information using the internet now that legitimate sites are no longer blocked. Teacher and school board staff will be pleased to know that by providing providing unfiltered internet access they will save thousands of dollars a year. Students won’t be any more vulnerable to harmful content than they were under the supposed protection of internet filters. Katherine Schulten states that “the majority of students have unfiltered internet access at home and regularly use it when working on homework.”(Schulten). Since most students commonly use unfiltered internet outside of school, there is no reason to believe there would be a problem using it inside of school. Unfiltered internet access will indeed be an asset to staff and students both educationally and financially. If schools choose to provide unfiltered internet access they will be glad to have made the right choice with the benefits that they will

The internet filters in this school are to deny our access to websites so students couldn’t misuse the internet for their own source of entertainment. Teachers I see often glare and seem likely to go berserk on the students who use the internet to beguile on tests and homework assignments. The new internet filter blocked websites using the most bandwidth in the school, but the

Many schools use an Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) that protects students and teachers privacy. An Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) is a policy that a user must agree to follow in order to be provided with access to a network or to the Internet. For example, when a student first logs on the computer for the first time there is this long page, that most people do not read, that explains the computer of policy and once you scroll down to the end of the page it asks you to agree and disagree. The long page just explains the rights and responsibilities of both the computer and the users. The components of the Acceptable Use Policy are as follows: a description of the instructional philosophies and strategies to be supported by Internet access in schools;

Finally, censoring information is not a solution. People can always find a way through the limitations. Mark Twain once said "telling someone they can't read a book is like telling a man he can't have a steak because a baby can't chew it." Following up on the example of the Firewall of China, today, people use VPNs to bypass the filter and access foreign information. In this case, if students can’t read a book, they will be more likely to discover ways to access the book. In the end, book banning will only increase students’ desire to read and make matters even

In the United States, every child, teenager and adult uses Wikipedia, YouTube and Facebook, among numerous other sites, regularly. The internet is open and uncensored for the most part, other than parental controls. In China, most, if not all of those types of sites are or have been blocked. As in, you could not go to them, unless you found some way around the web filters and firewalls the Chinese government runs in their country. While China defends their practice of internet censorship, based on “protecting” the people, heavy internet censorship is a block to free speech and impedes economic and social development in the 21st century.

The second reason of protecting children would include keeping adult content from children and keeping the children safe from paedophiles. National security is the other main reason why a country would be forced to impose internet censorship. The political sentiments of a country are likely to be kept a secret by the government. On the other hand we do have countries like China whose suppression of important information has led to not only national but international problems. ‘The SARS crisis in 2004, and the contamination of the Songhua River in 2006, which affected millions of lives in China and Russia, serve as particularly deadly examples’ (New HRIC Report Details State Secrets System 2007). Terrorism is another reason. The governments of most countries are keeping a strict watch out for any material posted on the internet linking to terrorism. ‘The National Institute of Justice defines computer crime as any illegal act for which knowledge of computer technology is used to commit the offence’ (Stamatellos 2007:11). On the fifth of July 2007, three “cyber-jihadis” who used the internet to urge Muslims to wage holy war on non-believers were jailed for between six-and-a-half and ten years in the first case of its kind on Britain (Gulf News, 2007:20). The governments also censor content to protect the political sentiments of the country. In Belarus, for example, ‘in March 2006, several

Teachers need to incorporate the use of firewalls, filtering software and AUP’s into the classroom to practice ethical use of technology in the classroom. Firewalls will protect the classroom and home computers from unwanted viruses. The firewall detects when a virus is being introduced to the network and will take measures to keep the virus from infecting a computer. Filtering software is important because it will not allow students to view unwanted material or websites (Shelly, G, Gunter, G, and Gunter, R 2012). Teachers

Professor Sam Wineburg of Stanford University adamantly opposes the practice of schools blocking students from certain websites and databases such as Wikipedia, Twitter, and Instagram. Dr. Wineburg suggests that if students only have access to information chosen and filtered by the institution, their ability to choose what to believe, and how to think will not develop. If students do not have access to sites such as Wikipedia, once they are able to browse freely, they will be unable to tell what is reliable. By imposing these restrictions, schools are failing to allow students to think freely. More importantly, they are depriving students of furthering their intelligence by choosing themselves what information is valid and what is not. These constraints essentially tell students what to believe; therefore, once they go beyond classroom doors and browse freely, they will be incapable of finding sources on their own. Furthermore, blocking sites only worsens the spread of fake news, since students believe everything they read. I agree with Dr. Wineburg in that schools should not block certain websites. Blocking students from sources or only allowing certain online databases not only limits students’ ability to expand their knowledge, but harms their free thinking and forces them to believe the information placed in front of them, ultimately contributing to students spreading fake news.