The CBC reports that the New Brunswick Department of Education has banned the use of Facebook by teachers and students during school hours.
New Brunswick Bans Facebook During School Hours
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Instructional Coordinator, eLearning, Halton District School Board
Horrible! But also ironic that the Ontario government has just UN-banned Facebook for it’s civil servants. 🙂
Our school district is considering filtering (we don’t yet filter anything) and it is a slippery slope, at the top of which is pornography and at the bottom of which is the blockage of social networking, religious and political sites.
What resources are there to fight these moves? How do we stop the seemingly inevitable???
Reporter Halton
It’s not such a bad idea to control those social networking sites. Jeff’s board needs to realize that when kids reach the real world ALL companies ban facebook etc. They also track Internet use of their employees. Billions are lost every year to lack of productivity. Facebook is the number one method online predators are attacking kids; students are bullying each other online via facebook; students post pictures of each other which are totally inappropriate for all to see (drugs, porn etc). There are numerous cases of kids now being charged with the distribution of kiddie porn and they are being put on the sex offender registry because they have posted inappropriate pictures of themselves!!! How can the Halton board protect children if they don’t know what they are dong?
I believe Halton is the ONLY board in all of Ontario which doesn’t have filters on their system and even the Halton Catholic board uses filters. When Jeff says that Halton has no filters on their system, does that mean their students can, infact, watch porn? Oh yes, that’s what I want my 8 year old learning at school… I don’t believe any school board would block religious or political sites; but porn, and social networking sites do not need to be accessed during school hours. If parents wish their kids to access these sites, they can do so at home, under their supervision. Where in the curriculum does it say that a kid has the “right” to facebook? If it is getting in the way of instruction then it should be removed. The same goes for cell phones. A kid does not need to be texting their friends during physics class – they do not need to talk to their friends via a cell phone during English class. Wait until class is over!! There is a time and place for this technology and why does the Halton board of ed believe that it’s an infringement on the rights of the student when they can still access this technology at home?
If a student brought a “Hustler” magazine to school and was reading it in History class would it not be taken away from them? Or is it their “right” to read hustler during class?!?! If they are not doing their work in computer class because they are chatting on the phone, is the phone not taken away? Well, instead of chatting on the phone, they are chatting on facebook and instead of reading hustler – they are on a free porn site; which, they may actually be downloading viruses to a school computer requiring the tax payer to fix it.
By the way – Facebook is still banned by 99.9%$ of government employees (that change never went through) AND surfing habits are tracked by government employees throughout Ontario. Canada Post is a prime example of this where all employees have filters on their machines and they are tracked 100%. MSN chat is also not permitted.
Most schools (outside of Ontario) actually have a two tiered logon. A teacher account is totally open to all sites. A student account has filters. But if a student needs to access a site which has been filtered, she/he can ask the teacher, and the teacher can do it for them. How is this such a bad idea?