No parent wants their children exposed to the inappropriate images that the internet seems to be plump full of or to be preyed upon by some pervert.
Let’s face it though, not the entire internet is bad. It is actually a useful tool in our education process, and some of the school website blockers are blocking some material that might be useful. The website blockers hinder, if not stops completely, our connection to the outside world.
If a student had to do a report on the negative affects of marijuana, and they googled it, it would automatically be blocked. If the student googled addiction, they might eventually get to the same place, but it would take longer and be more time consuming.
Now, let’s say a student wanted to get a hold of a close friend or a family member, but he can’t call him for whatever reason, so he decides to write them an e-mail. The school has an e-mail account set up for him, so he should be able to, right? Wrong! Because of the website blocker, he can’t e-mail anyone unless they have a school e-mail address. The blocker blocks any e-mail to or from websites used by millions, such as Hotmail, Yahoo, and Gmail. If someone sent a Hotmail e-mail to a student, it wouldn’t reach him. If he sent an e-mail to someone with a Hotmail account, it would just bounce back.
Galena is isolated enough as it is, and this might give the student a feeling of hopelessness.
Now, the blockers do help shield our teenage minds from a lot of bad things out there on the internet. I never said that all blockers are bad. I’m merely suggesting that they are too protective with what they block.
What we need is a happy medium, something that will protect us from the inappropriateness of the web, but also something that won’t hinder our learning process or sever our ties with the outside world. Letting us get and receive e-mails from commonly used e-mail providers would be an excellent start. That would take away some feelings of isolation. Letting in some websites that might be useful information would be helpful too. I’m not saying we should look at every website out there because that would be impossible. If a student suggests a website should be unblocked, an administrator could look at it on the spot, immediately determine whether it is appropriate, and if it is, unblock it while student works. That is what I think should be done