Unfortunate event with Blogger

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Permalink Reply by Miranda Clemson on October 1, 2008 at 3:13pm

Thank you!
Part of the problem, I believe, is that this web server also holds some other stuff like a Moodle install.
But I'll take a look as you suggest.

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Permalink Reply by Durff on October 1, 2008 at 4:06pm

Did the school or district block access? Are the blogs accessible from home? The first year that I blogged with 7th grade, we all blogged from home (we had zero student computers)

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Permalink Reply by Ann E Darling on October 2, 2008 at 4:58pm

Thanks for the great suggestions. My IT colleague is a peach just super busy so I am reluctatnt to bother until I have tried what I can to gather information on the event. We have sat down together and looked at our filters and have found the website to be rated in a category that is not blocked and then checked with the filter service to make sure. Done and no block. Next we pinged the blogger address and copied the resultatnt IP address into the browser and found that the browser opened up the google main start-up page. (we pinged the google page too and the IP addresses are different). So back to the Google Help discussion boards. My IT friend also wondered if there is some sort of port issue, however I don't understand that part and can't figure out a question to ask about that.

My students like the blogs, however I had not thought about them surrendering personal information as being an issue. Being new to technology education makes it difficult to anticipate such issues, I want my students to be able to access web 2.0 tools like google docs, blogs and wikis. It seems to me that if they begin blogging with good habits and coaching that they will continue to maintain them when they graduate. (I have mostly seniors). I think my students will benefit from learning what is available to them before they leave us, especially if they can have access for not much investment in software.
Again many thanks from this rookie!

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Permalink Reply by Mark Fuson on October 3, 2008 at 6:35am

The point of protecting student information is an important one to consider. The Internet can be a dangerous place, but I truly feel it is our job as educators to teach students how to address those dangers and not to block students from them. That's sort of like not teaching a child to swim because they could drown.

I saw a great presentation by Will Richardson yesterday and he brought this point up continually. People fear things like myspace because how it has been represented and, quite frankly, how students have used it. But the pertinent point I brought away from his discussion was the fact that students use mysapce that way ebcause no one has taught them any differently. If your interested, you can check out Will Richardson's page which has a lot of things that need to be considered by teachers as they take the step into using Web 2.0 in the classroom.

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Permalink Reply by Kelley Irish on October 3, 2008 at 3:47pm

I agree with Will Richardson. I actually sign my 3rd graders up for MYCBBC and we practice choosing a "Screen" name, and building an avatar. I think we need to teach them how to use these types of sites responsibly-and starting young works well.

This year I took a different look at how to teach internet safety to my Junior High kids-I had them make Multi-media Cyber Safe Video's for the Younger students. By having to focus on what was important for the litle kids to learn- they ended up examining their own practices! Plus I didn't have to look so preachy. You can check out their vid's here.

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Permalink Reply by Vicky S on October 3, 2008 at 4:46pm

I love the idea of having the older ones make something for the younger ones.

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Permalink Reply by Steve O'Connor on October 4, 2008 at 8:05am

A agree, but I think my point is being missed. I don't think we should not block kids from access to the Internet and its resources. My biological children have had their own domains and run their own websites using free and open source software from as young a 6-7 years old.

My concerns about student information expressed in this thread are not so much about safety, as they are about directing students to use hosted websites that collect and use their data to commercial ends. I don't think we have the right to make that choice for them. Viable, easy to use, and incredibly inexpensive alternatives exist.

How many even inform and explain the terms of service, privacy policies, and their ramifications to the students they direct to do so? It would seem to me that would be a vital part about educating students about navigating the Internet. From what I have seen in general, I suspect many teachers have not even looked at the TOS themselves.

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Permalink Reply by Ann E Darling on October 4, 2008 at 4:03pm

Before we started blogging we did a unit on copyrights, fair use and who exactly owns content that is posted on different types of websites. Our research turned up some policies that allow the owner to use the content as they choose even if you are the originator of the content, most of the time it is with publicly viewed applications, but it did get my students' attention. Event though it was 2 months ago I feel the need to repeat often and include more instruction on the kinds of information gathered.

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Permalink Reply by Ann E Darling on October 4, 2008 at 3:55pm

My it person is the head cheese for our district, I will forward what you have given me. I know he told me we were only using port 80 or I thought he said 440. I will double check with him. Thanks this is as close to a solution that we have found in 2 weeks. We are in your debt!

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Permalink Reply by Kelley Irish on October 4, 2008 at 8:25am

For emergency use ONLY http://unblockcity.org/ . If I have an entire lesson planned for a class-I know for sure the site is Okay, and has been approced by IT in the past-Once in a blue moon-like a total of 1 time last year I have used http://unblockcity.org/ I go to that site put in the url of the site I need in the proxy and I get to use it. I navigate to this with the projector off and I never give this out- It is my emergency fail safe to buy me time to sweet talk my IT department.

Be really nice to those people. I leave little gifts of cookies ect and thank you notes when they have to set up student accounts ect. so they know I appreciate their efforts. Sometimes the filter site they are using filters something out that you have been using and IT is unaware. So after you emai them they can allow the site on their content advisor. Always talk to IT. I only used the proxy because I knew it was preapproved and that I was only buying time until they could fix it. I normally have backup sites set up. -On this day I was stuck so I used the poxy site. Never ever ALLOw students to do this. Remember I only used it because I knew IT had approved the site.

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