Tear Down the Walls (a little crumb at a time)

I think many people would agree with me that the reason we currently suffer being blocked from a lot of useful content (Flickr, Google images, some email sites, YouTube, game sites, any site that contains the word "sex") is because we were not prepared for it. When our schools started getting connected the kids jumped on board and took off while we trailed far far behind. As we began to gain on them a little we had the horrifying realization that there were many many bad things they were looking at - they were free little savages in internet land with no adult supervision (we didn't even begin to know how!). Since we didn't have any better plans at the time for how to use all of the content that was available to us, and we were afraid, we put up walls. I guess you could say we made our own bed because now that we are finally getting our minds wrapped around all of the possibilities that content could bring to our classrooms, the status quo has been set. We don't do that, that is off limits, kids will do bad things with it.

However, we can count on the nature of the internet - every day new sites and shareware become available that do the same types of things. School districts cannot possibly block them all, they multiply too quickly.

I am interested in finding ways that classroom teachers who seriously want to access content are getting around the blockades to use YouTube, Flickr, and other traditionally blocked sites. I've found one or two very creative, although slightly confusing strategies already! I am frustrated that I have to do so much of this at home in the evenings or weekends...

It would be difficult to change our system outright - there is still too much mistrust of the internet on the part of many stakeholders. But as we demonstrate ways we can use these resources for learning, hopefully we can eventually change the perspective.