I’ve got a good idea. Let’s ban kids from using social networks. Like YouTube in schools. We won’t educate them, we’ll just y’know, stop it.
Oh we already ban YouTube? And we have the parents sign that their kids won’t go near social sites? Good. Worked for those sexually adventurous teens in the 50’s didn’t it? I mean, we banned sex education and that stopped everything. Well, didn’t it?
From Yahoo!Answers
How do you hack Net Nanny?
I have a friend who has a project due tomorrow for school. His parents are out of town, and his work involves looking at two videos on Youtube. The parental software won’t let him get on the Internet or visit www.youtube.com Does anyone know how to fool these controls?Best Answer – Chosen by Voters
How to disable Net Nanny:
First things first, there is reportedly an “in-case-Mommy-forgot-the-password” backdoor to the program (some or all versions).
Try ~frontdoor as your password. (and so on and so forth)
Consider the issues here;
- Yahoo!Answers is in deep doodoo? Maybe? Allowing minors to discuss hacks and cracks. (A no-no on my forum rules of engagement, for obvious reasons)
- Students using the very tool these services are supposed to stop: to learn how to get to social networks which are banned. Yay for teamwork and crowd sourcing. Boo for obeying the rules.
- Students needing YouTube for homework (yeah right) Just because there are Harvard channels, and Stanford channels, and nobel peace prize winner speeches, let’s ban it anyway. We should ban all libraries because some of them have crappy books too.
Banning vs education: What does failing to properly educate our children on social media look like?
I’m still miffed about the Department of Education stopping the work that Al Upton was doing educating his students. Got parent approval, tested the students on an ongoing basis about online safety – including having people leave “comments” and then using them as a basis for class discussion on identity and trust and stuff.
If there’s one thing worse than a government that doesn’t get the new digital economy and how important it is to quickly adapt education to it, it’s a passive voting public that accepts this censorship, “somebody think of the children” rubbish. And don’t tell me you didn’t know that sites like YouTube were banned at schools and that in order to get their hands on laptops schools made parents sign that their kids won’t go on any social sites. Cos now you do know. What are you gonna do about it?
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Banning whole domains is a technically stupid measure to begin with, because the collateral damage (in terms of both wrongly included content, and missed content) is enormous, even if you have the best possible criteria balancing Inappropriate Content with educational, informative content within a domain. Also, it’s incredibly easy to get around. Just use a proxy, folks.
Anyway. Given that schools are meant to educate people on how to live in the world (which includes the Internet), one would think that it’s necessary to educate on the ugly bits (whatever you think they are, whether it’s sex or social timewasting or war). The conversation goes something like this:
Adult: You mustn’t use social websites like Facebook.
Student: Why not?
Adult: They’re a waste of time.
Student: Then why are so many people using them? Like all my friends?
Adult: … your friends are stupid. Also, predators look for victims there!
Student sees forbidden fruit, takes a bite. Sees nothing wrong with it, is not kidnapped, and so dismisses Adult’s rule as stupid, diminishing Adult’s credibility on future occasions.
If you’re going to tell an intelligent human being (including teenagers) not to do something, you need to explain why *and provide evidence*, and actually convince them. Otherwise you’re wasting your time. If they’re not convinced, maybe you shouldn’t be either.
Lucas’s last blog post..Pattie Maes’ Sixth Sense technology: What’s stopping this?
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I was recently in Singapore and walked into a shop and there was a 10 year old boy behind the counter watching Youtube videos. This immediately made me homesick for my own young sons who were probably at that moment doing the same thing. This is a global phenomenon and it’s a great leveler between cultures and various communities and age groups. The potential is enormous and to ban its use is just stupid in the extreme. You can’t stop kids using these services and if you do it only makes them more attractive to them. The benefits far outweigh the downsides and the sooner schools start to use Youtube and other social networking sites as educational resources the better. Let’s train the bureaucrats and the teachers I say.
Peter Giles’s last blog post..Obama’s online community mobilisation
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Delicious shallow irony one.
DET NSW having their own youtube channel http://tinyurl.com/cfykxa deemed inappropriate for DET schools, in schools.
Cracks me up every time. I know, easily amused. So sad, it’s true. Them, not me.
Nannified DETs may eventually emerge from their open source hibernations, but by then Skirky’s “Here Comes Everyone” will morph into “Who the Hell is left?”
Delicious irony, slightly deeper, two.
DET’s glacial learning attitudes are providing internal solvent that’ll dissolve their own future relevancy, ala Pesce’s fluid learning.
Now that is a double choc yummy Trojan irony.
Wonder when, or if, they’ll get it? They may well end up as marginalised box tickers of mandated policy and little else, Here’s hoping.
I really wonder who’ll be left for DET to cloister, restrict, censor, protect, ban, control or damage?
A dose of “digital/social media walking the walk”(open source NOT portal silos) is the tonic needed by DET lead learners, like nowski!
Ban them? DET that is.
No they are doing just fine themselves. The DET school fish can’t even see their own tank water is rapidly turning septic because they keep pi%$ing in it.
Yeah, stoopid whitelist pipes and filters on learning annoy the hell out of this little red duck learner. My Rant, officially now, in hiatus.
Tony Searl’s last blog post..Diving in the Deeper End?
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