Youtube in the classroom

Comment I left on Chris Lehmann's Practical Theory

I too struggle with this. In my district, I am one of the people excited by Web 2.0 and who has a set of keys to the filtering system. I think that I am expansive and liberal in my thought, but conservative in action. I take very seriously that every day 1500 mothers and fathers hand me their most precious possessions, their children. If I do nothing else with my time in school, I must keep them safe, and return them safe to their parents. Now that overstates it, but erring on the side of caution has been my practice and the thought of many things that could go wrong with unrestricted access to Youtube, and Google Video makes me pause. I have joked that I don't want to be the tech guy standing in front of the school board explaining why this terrible thing happened with technology in my schools. I am about 30 mins from the schools system in CT where the substitute teacher in the middle school is facing 40 years (she has been convicted - just not yet sentenced) because somehow the computer in the classroom triggered an adware pornstorm of pop-up windows. This week I started seeing some editorials that focused on the role of tech guy who lamely said that he had not been notified by Symantec that his license had expired and that they were not protected. If that happened in my district, I am that on the witness stand and in the paper. Do I think looking at nude pictures scars 13 & 14 year olds for life - most likely not, but I would be angry if it happened to my kid and I would feel horrible if that happened in my school. Heck I had a parent complain about a link to a body function web site that showed cartoon poo in the toilet, and made fart sounds to illustrate the digestive track.

And yet, I must find ways to bring Web 2.0 into my schools. I will say this from a technical point of view. I am in CT and I connect to the web through the state sponsored Connecticut Education Network (CEN) a wonder fiber based connection that by law is supposed to deliver as much bandwith as I need to draw. We, like most schools, opted for the filtering that came with connection (free). That tool is a bit too clumsy as it is all or nothing. I cannot split adults from kids, or older kids from younger kids. All I can do is all or nothing. We are struggling to make several routes out to the CEN connection with differential filtering for groups. However, that is nothing but a band aid. We need to move to a solution that allows a finer gradation. In our Windows based system we can control lots of things about how users interact with IE6 & 7 and the world beyond. I would like to get to the point where I can use the tools of active directory to construct differing filtering scenarios (classic example - our regional high school principals have a need to get out to My Space, which is blocked for students). As I see more and more tools with protections (Google Team blogs, closed Wikis) we can step carefully into the new environment. Current technical conflict that I have commented elsewhere - Firefox and proxy settings. I can make proxy settings part of the filtering solution and control proxy servers at the network level. Deploying Firefox and its powerful educational tools requires a manual setting of proxies at each machine. I love Firefox, but it will add a layer of management that I is not fun to think about. Cross posted in Seriously Wired (http://technosteve.blogspot.com/) and Life In the Fast Lane (http://soko.edublogs.org/)