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Saturday
Dec022017

The reluctant restrictor

This past week I've been working with teachers and others in the district to create a "restricted OU." An OU is an "organizational unit" and we place groups of people in them (elementary students, teachers, etc) and then assign filtering settings and other permissions to those groups.

With the expansion of our 1 to 1 Chromebook project to grades 6 through 8, there have been increased calls by teachers and parents for highly restricted access for some students. These kids are the ones who seem to have either begun digital communications deemed inappropriate (My daughter is emailing much older boys.) or lack the self-discipline to keep the computer from becoming a distraction in class or elsewhere (The kid plays games when he should be paying attention to my lecture.) Basically the call has been, "Give these students computer access to ONLY what they need to do their school work and nothing more."

This sets up a number of challenges for me as a proponent of intellectual freedom for students. Is what is considered necessary for school universally agreed upon by all teachers and parents? What valuable resources and activities are we denying these students when blocking categorically by our filter? How do students learn digital safety and self-control without the ability to practice them? What is to keep a student from being placed permanently in the restricted OU because of one bad day or one slip in judgment? Will students in the restricted OU have less concern about having a working device if all they can use it for is school work?

I also worry that we will be asked to create not just one restricted OU, but dozens, each uniquely fit to single individuals, acting, as we would call it in the library world, in loco parentis. (I want my child to have access to CNN but not Fox News. It's OK for my child to have Snapchat but not Instgram.)

Certain due processes are in place. To be placed in the restricted OU, the student must have a 504, an IEP, or a parent conference with the school principal. All of a student's teachers must agree to the placement. Requests can only come from building admins, not directly from parents or teachers. The settings of the restricted OU will be reviewed quarterly by our filtering committee. 

We have created the OU and it becomes active next week. I just fear the slippery slope we may be creating.

Any advice from other schools where these challenges exist?

 

 

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Reader Comments (4)

I am a teacher at a school that has 1:1 and the curricula I teach are completely online. I do have 2 of my students with restrictions because of highly inappropriate (illegal, had to get police involved) behavior online. There have been certain segments of lessons those students are unable to complete. I'm okay with that. It is easy to look at it as a "big picture," forest instead of trees issue and be overwhelmed with the possibility of having a huge number of these requests. Please try to make a slight shift in that thinking, as you would work an IEP. Just because it is there does not mean it applies to everyone. You do need to keep students safe (sometimes from themselves and their lack of maturity). Perspective shift: you're creating restricted access for a tiny fraction of students, not "what if everyone."
As for parents requesting restriction from a news site... That should never get past the requirements you listed anyway. Parent and teacher can work together to teach evaluation of sources. A building admin should never be passing that request to you and if they do, you have a topic for the next PD you have to give.

December 2, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterMrs Hathaway

Hi Mrs. Hathaway,

I sincerely appreciate your comment and point of view. You are helping me shift my thinking indeed.

Doug

December 3, 2017 | Registered CommenterDoug Johnson

Doug,

I can relate to every word of this post. As a librarian at heart, it is crushing whenever I am asked to censor websites. Some for safety or regulation reasons, I do, but most I have to have long, often hard, conversations with parents, teachers and administrators about why I will not block certain categories or sites. Some topics or sites I have refused to block this school year alone:
Youtube
Instagram
Facebook
WWE sites
A half-dozen gaming sites
and my favorite is a mother who wanted me to block all sneaker sites because her son stayed up all night looking at sneakers.

My techs fear the customization of OUs, so I also only have one restricted OU. Currently we have only a few students in there and it mainly blocks chats and social media. I like that you have clearly defined parameters. Mine has mostly been admin request. Can you tell us more about your filtering committee?

As you may be able to tell, I have no answers, but wanted to let you know that another librarian turned director feels your pain with every request!

December 4, 2017 | Unregistered CommenterBrad Malone

Thanks so much, Brad. This comment made my day. It's pretty easy to feel like you are the only person fighting the battle for kids' IF rights! Keep up the good work. (Love the sneaker example.)

Doug

December 5, 2017 | Registered CommenterDoug Johnson

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