Comments for The Masterplan

Comment on Farewell Edublogs by mrstucke

mrstucke — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 13:53:46 +0000

I have grown a little weary of the downtime but it was the introduction of adverts on free blogs that pushed me over the edge. Yes, I could have paid for the ‘premium’ or ’supporter’ to remove them but it seemed like a good time to strike out on my own

Comment on Farewell Edublogs by lparren

lparren — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 00:26:02 +0000

Why? Have you had troubles with edublogs, too?

Comment on Help! – A plea to bring sanity to my attempts to use the Web at school by The Fight Goes On « The Masterplan

The Fight Goes On « The Masterplan — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 13:49:59 +0000

[...] thanks to all those who commented on my rant last month with regards to Internet filtering etc within school, I know it’s something a lot [...]

Comment on Help! – A plea to bring sanity to my attempts to use the Web at school by The Fight Goes On | The Masterplan

The Fight Goes On | The Masterplan — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 18:10:08 +0000

[...] thanks to all those who commented on my rant last month with regards to Internet filtering etc within school, I know it’s something a lot [...]

Comment on Help! – A plea to bring sanity to my attempts to use the Web at school by Brian Smith

Brian Smith — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 13:31:55 +0000

Daniel, your frustration is totally understandable and shared by an increasing number of teachers and others. The respondents here have raised several issues including my own pet theme which is that we are witnessing the dying embers of the Victorian Curriculum (born 1870, died 20??). Stephen Heppel calls this generation of children currently in schools the Lost Generation and he fears for them. You are working for them and their futures but you are being blocked by the dinosaurs. All I can say is that you know you are right and you have the backing of the entire thinking educational community. Keep up the good work and good luck with the battle to reopen Google Docs and other sites in your school.

Comment on Help! – A plea to bring sanity to my attempts to use the Web at school by Using Web 2.0 in schools | Tania Kennedy at UTS

Using Web 2.0 in schools | Tania Kennedy at UTS — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 21:48:16 +0000

[...] Stucke’s blog post expressed great frustration at Googledocs being blocked at his school in Scotland. Googledocs [...]

Comment on Help! – A plea to bring sanity to my attempts to use the Web at school by AS ICT - Some thoughts | milesberry.net

AS ICT - Some thoughts | milesberry.net — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 20:47:35 +0000

[...] undergrads in using Excel to do interesting things like manipulate big data sets, and mrstucke is not allowed access to a a google sheet from school. Is it possible that the system isn’t working in the best interests of our [...]

Comment on Help! – A plea to bring sanity to my attempts to use the Web at school by mrstucke

mrstucke — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:41:04 +0000

I couldn’t agree more Michelle. It is only a small matter of time until numerous pupils have iphones on their pocket with unlimited data plans. Shortly after that I can see them having netbooks with similar data plans, I’d seriously consider supplying my son/daughter (if I had one!) with one if they had to put up with our network.

Comment on Help! – A plea to bring sanity to my attempts to use the Web at school by Michelle Baldwin

Michelle Baldwin — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:31:09 +0000

Good luck to you… I know this isn’t easy.

Part of the problem, I think, is that many of the decision-makers do not use Web 2.0 themselves. We recently surveyed all our administration to ask them if they even knew about certain Web 2.0 tools, did they use them, etc. The results were not promising; HOWEVER, I’ve been given the opportunity to provide a short in-service to show the value. I’m optimistic.

Another part of the problem, and it’s all the way to the federal gov’t, is our CIPA and COPPA legislation. So many adults have an issue with control (or the illusion thereof) regarding anything on the web. They are only aware of the garbage and the dangers — and because they can’t control those things, they feel they cannot allow children to view any of it during the school day. So what are those kids doing outside of school then?

My opinion is that kids need to be educated about becoming good web citizens. They can’t learn to avoid the “bad stuff” if they never access the web.

Sorry… my comment is rather long, isn’t it?

Comment on Help! – A plea to bring sanity to my attempts to use the Web at school by lynnehorn

lynnehorn — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 19:24:26 +0000

Some of the things I have asked to be unblocked have been (animoto, wordle), but other sites have been refused. I had to give reasons for them to be unblocked but there were no reasons given for the refusal – I had a bit of a mini tantrum and eventually the reasons given were that they contained streaming media or were blogs

In fact I access blogs in school (edublogs and typepad are not blocked) and access other websites with streaming media with no problems. The worst thing is our technician was told that all blogs were blocked and told English staff this when they wanted to start own blog – thankfully between us we were able to sort this out and they have started their blog.

So no answers, but I feel your frustrations!