Blocked...is filtering really the answer?

I have seen it plenty of times before, talked about it with other teachers and experienced it myself. You have a wonderful idea for a new lesson, it involves getting on a website. Perhaps you are having your students go on the website, perhaps you are just trying to show a video or perhaps you are having your students create new content. But, once at school you try to load up the website and bam...it is blocked. You sit back and ask yourself now what?

The question to filter or not to filter has been bouncing back and forth in the education world for as long as the internet has became a serious resource in student's education. On one hand, the internet is an amazing resource that can provide a wealth of information that will allow students to become better learners. On the other hand, the internet can provide a wealth of information that is not appropriate for students whatsoever. So how do we rectify this conundrum?

While I appreciate that filtering may hurt student's abilities to understand if a website is really good or bad ( for example, how do you find out if a website is bad if you are only presented with good websites to choose from). However, I don't think a lack of filters is the answer. Let's face it, there is material on the internet that is not appropriate for students and there is material on the internet that is not educational and shouldn't be used when student's should be learning. Filter's do have their place in schools, as they can help protect students. Nevertheless, there needs to be a system or a process where websites can be unblocked if they are deemed suitable for educational use by a teacher or a librarian. While most school's have processes like this, they often take forever and are can be such a hassle that teachers and librarians simply decide not to try to get the website unblocked in the first place. I believe that if a teacher thinks a website should be unblocked they should be able to go to the Principal and the librarian, present their case and have the site unblocked within a day or so. The librarian should be involved because he or she is an information specialist who understands how to evaluate websites. Furthermore, I think it might be effective to have a filter committee meet before the beginning of the school year and discuss what new educational websites are available and what changes might need to be made to the filter. Websites that were once considered non-educational may now be used for educational purposes. For example, I know when Facebook first came out many schools blocked it because it was considered not educational; however, now many schools are unblocking Facebook because teachers are using is in classrooms for educational purposes.

Filtering is never perfect. Often information is blocked that shouldn't be blocked and just as often, information is not blocked that should be blocked. Perhaps having less of a filter might be more effective, or it might not. Regardless, it is important to have a clear procedure set up to get websites unblocked. Teachers and students shouldn't suffer by having to wait forever to access a website.