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Should School computers have firewalls?

Should schools have firewalls

  • Total voters
    51
I guess we won't be seeing Iwa again; I suppose he got the answer he wanted by venturing into the adult world.
 
Iwa said:
I grew up alone i supervise myself thanks very much. I don't need a babysitter to tell me that there are morons on the internet ^^
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dude, seriously stop giving teenagers a bad reputation.
 
Oftencold said:
Until the senior year, I don't think that kids have any need to be exposed to computers at all, except possibly for serious students in a technical course of study.

I also don't approve of cooks. janitors or sports programs in schools.


Call me old fashioned, although one would be better advized to call me Milord.
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I will call you old fashioned. :mrgreen:

Schools already have firewalls etc. so the question is moot.
 
Out of curiosity, what do you want your life to accomplish? This is not frivolous question, by the way. I begin to have a certain set of suspicions, that I'd like to consider, but with more information.
 
digsbe said:
I think firewalls in schools is a good and necessary idea. A school is a place for education, not facebook, myspace, or porn. Honestly, having teenagers with unrestricted to the internet would only lead to bad things. Our educational system is already bad enough, and the blame lies partially with the students and not just the establishments. Firewalls are a necessary thing in my opinion.
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Do you honestly believe that just because students can't access facebook or myspace or porn they're going to work?
Those who don't want to learn aren't going to and a firewall simply restricts the ones that do.
 
hungry_hungry_hippo said:
Do you honestly believe that just because students can't access facebook or myspace or porn they're going to work?
Those who don't want to learn aren't going to and a firewall simply restricts the ones that do.
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Not being able to access facebook, myspace, or porn does not restrict ANY student from working.
 
spud_meister said:
you never went to my school then, all we had was wikipedia or a government search engine that found mostly wikipedia articles
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Most schools of students that I've worked with have a very different experience.
 
CaptainCourtesy said:
Some, but not all, and certainly not enough for students who want to work to do so.
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Perhaps, but it certainly makes it a lot harder. I just don't think it's worth it to block facebook at the cost of half of potentially useful sites.
I think someone mentioned this as well, but at my school there's a program that allows teachers to see every student's screen on their computer and I think this is much more useful.
 
hungry_hungry_hippo said:
Do you honestly believe that just because students can't access facebook or myspace or porn they're going to work?
Those who don't want to learn aren't going to and a firewall simply restricts the ones that do.
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Actually, the ones that want to work are hardly likely to notice the firewall.
 
hungry_hungry_hippo said:
Perhaps, but it certainly makes it a lot harder. I just don't think it's worth it to block facebook at the cost of half of potentially useful sites.
I think someone mentioned this as well, but at my school there's a program that allows teachers to see every student's screen on their computer and I think this is much more useful.
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Blocking facebook and myspace is rather simple. A good admin can just block access to those sites. The problem is porn. In order to block porn sites, a lot of biology sites... and others go with them. A lot of admins use keyword blocking and this is where the problem lies.
 
Yep. Otherwise little Johnny comes home and tells mommy what he saw at school while playing on the net and Mommy decides to sue the school cause he was looking at boobs or something. lol
 
hungry_hungry_hippo said:
Agreed, but firewalls also block plenty of useful sites.
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"Useful" for what?

Internet access can be managed to allow for sites which are pertinent to the lesson at hand. And if some are still blocked, well, a teacher can provide info. Or, they simply work with what they have.

I can't think of any pedagogical situation where unfettered access to the Internet is needed.
 
Kali said:
Yep. Otherwise little Johnny comes home and tells mommy what he saw at school while playing on the net and Mommy decides to sue the school cause he was looking at boobs or something. lol
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It depends on how little Little Johnny is. If he is like 8, then the boobs he saw were meaningless, they were just body parts. If he is like 13 or 14, then he will have seen boobs on the 'net, or somewhere else, whether mummy likes it or not. :mrgreen: Frankly, I think adults get too wound up about sex and children's interest in it. They will find out about sex when they reach an appropriate age, and they will do sex, whether their 'rents like it or not. ;)
 
Leo said:
It depends on how little Little Johnny is. If he is like 8, then the boobs he saw were meaningless, they were just body parts. If he is like 13 or 14, then he will have seen boobs on the 'net, or somewhere else, whether mummy likes it or not. :mrgreen: Frankly, I think adults get too wound up about sex and children's interest in it. They will find out about sex when they reach an appropriate age, and they will do sex, whether their 'rents like it or not. ;)
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Actually, research (via polls of teenagers) shows that parents have a lot of influence over their teens' behavior. And what you've said here isn't an argument against the schools' responsibility to act in accordance with parents' wishes, particularly since parents are required by law to send their kids to school. Schools are inherently conservative institutions for precisely this reason. IF PARENTS wish to give their kids unfettered access to the net, they may do so whatever the school's policy, but if parents wish to limit their kids' access, a school offering free access would undermine those parents.

Just because people break rules doesn't mean there shouldn't be any.
 
Harshaw said:
"Useful" for what?

Internet access can be managed to allow for sites which are pertinent to the lesson at hand. And if some are still blocked, well, a teacher can provide info. Or, they simply work with what they have.

I can't think of any pedagogical situation where unfettered access to the Internet is needed.
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There was one time where I very upset that I couldn't access a video on YouTube. It's pretty hard to find nowadays because it's so old. It was called "Duck and Cover", it's a 1950s educational video given to public schools about an atomic bomb drill. I tried to find other sources that may have had the video, but when I did, those would be blocked as well.

I got around it by using a program where I can dowload YouTube videos turn them into a video file that I can play on Windows Media Player.

I didn't have to use that video, but I really wanted to. It certainly helped me a lot to be able to show that video. I don't need unfettered access to the internet, but the firewall is certainly an obstacle at times. But overall, I still think it serves a good purpose.
 
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Lightdemon said:
There was one time where I very upset that I couldn't access a video on YouTube. It's pretty hard to find nowadays because it's so old. It was called "Duck and Cover", it's a 1950s educational video given to public schools about an atomic bomb drill. I tried to find other sources that may have had the video, but when I did, those would be blocked as well.

I got around it by using a program where I can dowload YouTube videos turn them into a video file that I can play on Windows Media Player.

I didn't have to use that video, but I really wanted to. It certainly helped me a lot to be able to show that video. I don't need unfettered access to the internet, but the firewall is certainly an obstacle at times. But overall, I still think it serves a good purpose.
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If you're looking for something specific, it can be gotten for you.
 
Leo said:
Frankly, I think adults get too wound up about sex and children's interest in it. They will find out about sex when they reach an appropriate age, and they will do sex, whether their 'rents like it or not. ;)
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Agree.. But.. They should not do it down to the school house:2razz:
 
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Kali said:
Agree.. But.. They should not do it down to the school house:2razz:
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LOLZ! Why not? Plenty of empty classrooms and broom closets around. :mrgreen:
 
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