I still remember the cold war era. One country builds a weapon designed for offense...a counterpoint country develops a defense to negate the offensive nature of the other's country's weapon...and that cycle repeated itself over and over. Apparently we are facing a similar cold war scenario in terms of developing defenses to keep offensive materials from being delivered to our children on the Internet.
No restrictions on Net access at McMurray public schools:
“I guess the rationale is based on the nature of our business, which is to educate students in being good citizens, and that includes being good citizens of the information age as well as the rest of society.”
Bevans said the decision was not made lightly, and took no small amount of time and consideration.
“We have deliberately -- with much consultation with parents, teaching staff, administrators, outside agencies, other jurisdictions in the province -- decided not to employ filters,” Bevans said. “We feel as an educational organization it’s our responsibility to educate students in all aspects of life.”
Who should take the front line of defense on inappropriate Internet content? Do we want governments to decide what is acceptable to deliver (or to receive)? Do we expect those who deliver computer technology to provide us with 'cold war' cyclical defense options? Do we want our schools/educators to be the filters? Should the responsibility fall on the shoulders of parents? Is it reasonable to expect that children can or will police themselves?
This is just my opinion, but I don't believe there is any one individual or institution who holds the 'silver bullet' answer, but it is a combination of all the above...with perhaps the exception of governments. I would be interested in following the experiences of the Ft. McMurray schools to see if their initiative perform as expected. What do you think?