Policies up-to-date? Pentlin on blocking web sites

Two examples made me start thinking about this issue [reconsideration of blocked websites]. I use Skype in my library science classes and one of my students said she couldn’t use Skype at school. She had found this out when she wanted to Skype her husband who was serving in Afghanistan The district refused to let her use Skype even after school to participate in a graduate class or to contact her husband. It doesn’t take much reading to realize that Skype, Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook are being blocked by a number of school districts even though there are many examples in the literature of effective educational use social media.

Not too long ago a school district near me systematically blocked any Web sites that dealt with homosexuality. It was only after the ACLU became involved that the school district backed down in a very public display of contrition which included having to pay the ACLU attorney fees, unblocking non-sexual pro-LGBT sites and reporting regularly about blocked Web sites to an outside party.

In both of the examples above, could the issues have been resolved had there been a collaboratively developed and board approved selection policy in place with a procedure for the reconsideration of Web sites? Of course we know that even with policies in place, a common problem with censorship challenges is that administrators don’t follow their own policies, but even so, having a policy is an important step.

Floyd Pentlin, "Banned Web Sites: Are Your Policies Up-to-Date", Knowledge Quest, Septemeber 8, 2015

I am happy to see AASL continue the work of eliminating the censorship of online tools and resources. Although digital resources still only get a day, while banned books (those old-fashioned paper things) get a whole week, the work does continue.

Super-librarian, Michelle Luhtala, is spearheading this year's BWAD (Blocked Websites Awareness Day). BWAD this year is September 30, 2015. Check the free resources on the site.

Honor BWAD this year by asking a student to show you how to get around your school's Internet filter. You'll be glad you did.

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Getting websites and web-based resources including social media treated fairly has long been a horn I've tooted. See:

• Are You Sure You Want an Internet Filter? Virtual Censorship is Still Censorship TechTrends, May/June 1998
• Best Practices for Meeting CIPA Requirements EdTech Magazine Q4 2005.
• Blocked Bytes Week, Blue Skunk blog, September 23, 2008
  
• Connections for Learning, a SayWire White Paper on social networking tools in education, 2009.
• Filtering Fallacies Educational Leadership, December/January 2013
• Freedom to Learn (due process and filtering), LMC, January/February 2012
• Format Bigotry, LMC, November/December 2009
• Getting websites unblocked, Blue Skunk blog, April 2, 2012
  
• Good Policy for Policies (Techno Intelligence), School Library Journal, March 2003
• Guidelines for Educators Using Social and Educational Networking Sites(with Jen Hegna) Library Media Connection, March/April  2010
• Internet Filters: Censorship by Any Other Name?, Emergency Librarian(Teacher Librarian), May 1998
• Maintaining Intellectual Freedom in a Filtered World, Leading & Learning, May 2005.
• Marginalizing the marginalized with filtering, Blue Skunk blog, February 20, 2015
  
• Neglected Side of Intellectual Freedom, LMC, March/April 2013
• Rules for the Social Web Threshold, Summer 2007
• Why Facebook Belongs in Your School Educational Leadership, February 2014