RE: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

[Grady, Jock]

Interesting to see how the DET network handles this link!

 

Had a look from outside the firewall – and think the site is really thought-provoking with some great images.

 

Regards

 

Jock Grady

 

Manager, LearnScope NSW

 

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com [mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Leigh Blackall
Sent: Sunday, 7 August 2005 9:22 PM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

 

There's a hint to why that war keeps going on in that site:

Old man: We don't want it to be beautiful, we hate this wall, go home.
Me: Thanks.
Old man: You paint the wall, you make it look beautiful.

On 8/7/05, Leigh Blackall <leighb...@gmail.com> wrote:

Every now and then we go off topic

http://www.banksy.co.uk/news/index.html

Thanks Adam Bramwell for this fine link


--
Leigh Blackall
+61(0)247827637
skype - leigh_blackall
http://teachandlearnonline.blogspot.com
http://lifeinthemountains.blogspot.com
http://leighblackall.wikispaces.org/

--
Leigh Blackall
+61(0)247827637
skype - leigh_blackall
http://teachandlearnonline.blogspot.com
http://lifeinthemountains.blogspot.com
http://leighblackall.wikispaces.org/

**********************************************************************
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[Leigh Blackall]

That's outrageous! How long are we going to tollerate this?? I have an interview with DET this Thursday. I'll use it as an opportunity to bring this outrage to attention.
Seeing as we are on the topic of walls (DET firewalls that is) perhaps we should start a little graf of our own. I'm made a quick graf of this outrage, and will for any other stupid examples of DET Firewall activity. I suppose they'd say that the site only has to be enabled... hope enabling can happen in the space of 2 minutes, because that's all it would take to piss 30 year 8 kids right off!

[Sean FitzGerald]

Hey Leigh - you mis-spelled the tag.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/accessdetnied/

Sean

-- 

Sean FitzGerald
Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291
Mob: +61 (0)404 130 342
Skype: seamusy
Web: http://seanfitz.wikispaces.org/

I had better come clean now and say that I do not believe
that either art or beauty is optional in a sane society.       
-- Jeanette Winterson 

[Sean FitzGerald]

I bet they've picked up on the keyword "grafitti" and consider that a crime. It would be interesting to find out if this was the case.

Not good for anyone working with YAR!

Sean

[Sean FitzGerald]

Okay... sorry, I get it now.

Sean

Peace is not the absence of conflict;
it's the absence of inner conflict.
-- Unknown

[Grady, Jock]

Like the juxtaposition Leigh.

 

Makes one wonder just what crime DET is protecting against – crimes against humanity or the greater evil of graffiti?

 

 

Jock

 

[Hutchens, Matthew]

Hi there

 

I have a good one for you

we are getting kicked out of our house in Redfern because they are selling ti - so looking for rental on Friday - and put in Google for LJ Hooker......

 

access denied adult S*X

 

nice

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com [mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com]On Behalf Of Sean FitzGerald
Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 11:21 AM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

I bet they've picked up on the keyword "grafitti" and consider that a crime. It would be interesting to find out if this was the case.

Not good for anyone working with YAR!

Sean

-- 

Sean FitzGerald
Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291

Mob: +61 (0)404 130 342
Skype: seamusy
Web: http://seanfitz.wikispaces.org/

I had better come clean now and say that I do not believe
that either art or beauty is optional in a sane society.       
-- Jeanette Winterson 

**********************************************************************

[Kylie Rowsell]

Hi,

 

Well, I’m curious.

 

Can you get to this inside the firewall?

http://world-wide-graffiti.blogspot.com/

 

Probably won’t be of too much concern if it is blocked, but I am curious…

Thanks,
Kylie
 
ph: 4978 4016

---

[Kylie Rowsell]

When working inside an Institute, I was blocked from refuguee action sites during the height of the children overboard/woomera actions.

Also heard the wall is a hassle for nursing teachers, as female health sites can be difficult to access.

 

Aaah, the vagaries of keyword based gate-keepers and net-nannies.

 

Be interested in other tales of denied access….

 

Thanks,
Kylie
 
ph: 4978 4016

From: Hutchens, Matthew [mailto:Matthew....@det.nsw.edu.au]
Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 11:24 AM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

 

Hi there

 

I have a good one for you

we are getting kicked out of our house in Redfern because they are selling ti - so looking for rental on Friday - and put in Google for LJ Hooker......

 

access denied adult S*X

 

nice

[Leigh Blackall]

exactly! What a world we have with robots in charge!!

[Grady, Jock]

No problem for this one Kylie – wonder if it was cleared specially or if there’s a hidden Zionist agenda lurking in the screening software?

 

Jock

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com [mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Kylie Rowsell
Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 11:25 AM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

 

Hi,

 

Well, I’m curious.

 

Can you get to this inside the firewall?

http://world-wide-graffiti.blogspot.com/

 

Probably won’t be of too much concern if it is blocked, but I am curious…

Thanks,
Kylie
 
ph: 4978 4016

---

From: Sean FitzGerald [mailto:se...@tig.com.au]
Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 11:21 AM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

 

I bet they've picked up on the keyword "grafitti" and consider that a crime. It would be interesting to find out if this was the case.

Not good for anyone working with YAR!

Sean

Grady, Jock wrote:

Sean FitzGerald

Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291

Mob: +61 (0)404 130 342

Skype: seamusy

Web: http://seanfitz.wikispaces.org/

I had better come clean now and say that I do not believe

that either art or beauty is optional in a sane society.       

-- Jeanette Winterson 

**********************************************************************

[Leigh Blackall]

Jeez! If you can send me a screen grab of the Access screen you got, I'll super impose it on the LJ hooker site and load it to the Flicker graf.

[Grady, Jock]

 

 

[Hutchens, Matthew]

cheers Jock

 

makes me think if I was a TAFE real Estate student I would do my Cert through OTEN

[Leigh Blackall]

You poor souls working under an iron curtain. ...

go west, where the air is cear. go west where the ...

flickr updated with Mathew's example. Anymore?

[Hutchens, Matthew]

well yeah.... good advice Leigh

do you mean from Redfern or...lol

 

no further eamples at this time ....but as another juxtaposition - I just got this spam below through to me at work...I know there are abviously different processes at play here....but kinda weird when cant look up an apartment but can get plenty of support with life "enhancement

 

email recieved at 1210 today

You know you need it. The longer and thicker you are, the better everyone involved will be.

Don't delay on the world's best solution for your problem. Make "it" work like a king today.

Up-size it.

http://oxidatingplants.com/lgz11/

 

Not for you now then continue.

http://oxidatingplants.com/1m/

[Joyce Smith]

Bad boy bloggy !! LOL

 

Joyce

 

Leigh ,what a great chuckle for a Monday ( if it were not so serious , free here too thank goodness !)

---

Express yourself with over 8,000 FREE Email Smileys - click here!

[rgrozdanic]

it's just a bloody firewall!! :-)))))  no human intelligence or capacity for discrimination. they need to set the bar somewhere and words like "hooker" appear to have been included in the lexicon of exclusions.

 

whevever i came across things that were barred and needed to be included (because they weren't offensive), i just wrote to the central techo unit and asked them to manually let through that particular site.  and they did.

 

just tell them. they're public servants too - they probably don't give a rat's arse. i really think that choosing to see them as "they" who are preventing us from seeing what we need to see, just infantalises us.  they're the department of education. there's occasional scandal with teachers looking up kiddie porn. parents and community get justifiably upset. so they set up the firewalls in line with policies governing that sort of stuff. and words like "sexual harassment" (which are within DET policy) get banned just because of some 0's and 1's.  no big deal. and easily fixed.

 

cheers

 

r

[Kylie Rowsell]

I’m just always fascinated by language and its vagaries….

Another time when language does not serve us, where hooker means “real estate’ and ‘lady of the night”…

 

It’s a larger ‘problem’ of the web, with all the folksonomies, tagging (if we ban ‘nigger’ will we negate info on disaffected black youth circa – NiggasWithAttitude, seminal rap band?), human categorization (like Flickr) going on. Language. Yum!

 

But that’s another topic….

 

Thanks,
Kylie
 
ph: 4978 4016

From: rgrozdanic [mailto:rgroz...@gmail.com]
Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 1:58 PM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

 

it's just a bloody firewall!! :-)))))  no human intelligence or capacity for discrimination. they need to set the bar somewhere and words like "hooker" appear to have been included in the lexicon of exclusions.

[Trevaskis, Maria]

I was just preparing to reply to this outrage when the computer crashed…prophetic,

 

The problem, of course you would all be aware is managing the risks to young and vulnerable people in TAFE. And as TAFE shares a network with DET, polices that apply to schools apply to TAFE. This is very frustrating especially when teachers and students are prohibited from accessing valuable teaching and learning material for example from the BBC sites. The tail wags the dog.

 

I have less sympathy for Matthews real estate problem, I see that more simply as a time waster that he has to take time off work to find a place to live.

 

I have been involved in some discussion recently about WEB Services which involved identifying whether the Institute would require self administration of the DET filter, that is sites can be taken off the filter at a local level, and others put on.

 

I am open to comments about this however would be personally more confident in arguing that the risks are low and that the filter could be managed locally if our staff were not accessing crime sites and other material from the Web now! From the reports I have read in the last few years porn and other sites are still very high usage by staff.

 

Has anyone asked for the site in question to be taken off the filter????

 

 

 

Maria Trevaskis

Director Educational Development

WSI Strategy Unit

 Penrith BG 27

Nepean College of TAFE

117 Henry St Penrith. 2748

Ph:47248282

Fax: 47248259

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com [mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Joyce Smith
Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 1:12 PM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

 

Bad boy bloggy !! LOL

 

Joyce

 

Leigh ,what a great chuckle for a Monday ( if it were not so serious , free here too thank goodness !)

 

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com [mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Hutchens, Matthew
Sent: 8 August 2005 12:18 PM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Norton AntiSpam] :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

 

well yeah.... good advice Leigh

do you mean from Redfern or...lol

 

no further eamples at this time ....but as another juxtaposition - I just got this spam below through to me at work...I know there are abviously different processes at play here....but kinda weird when cant look up an apartment but can get plenty of support with life "enhancement

 

email recieved at 1210 today

You know you need it. The longer and thicker you are, the better everyone involved will be.

Don't delay on the world's best solution for your problem. Make "it" work like a king today.

Up-size it.

http://oxidatingplants.com/lgz11/

 

Not for you now then continue.

http://oxidatingplants.com/1m/

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com [mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com]On Behalf Of Leigh Blackall

Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 12:14 PM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

You poor souls working under an iron curtain. ...

go west, where the air is cear. go west where the ...

flickr updated with Mathew's example. Anymore?

On 8/8/05, Hutchens, Matthew < Matthew....@det.nsw.edu.au> wrote:

cheers Jock

 

makes me think if I was a TAFE real Estate student I would do my Cert through OTEN

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com [mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com]On Behalf Of Grady, Jock

Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 11:38 AM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com [mailto: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Leigh Blackall

Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 11:33 AM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

 

Jeez! If you can send me a screen grab of the Access screen you got, I'll super impose it on the LJ hooker site and load it to the Flicker graf.

On 8/8/05, Hutchens, Matthew <Matthew....@det.nsw.edu.au> wrote:

Hi there

 

I have a good one for you

we are getting kicked out of our house in Redfern because they are selling ti - so looking for rental on Friday - and put in Google for LJ Hooker......

 

access denied adult S*X

 

nice

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com [mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com]On Behalf Of Sean FitzGerald

Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 11:21 AM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

I bet they've picked up on the keyword "grafitti" and consider that a crime. It would be interesting to find out if this was the case.

Not good for anyone working with YAR!

Sean

Grady, Jock wrote:

Interesting to see how the DET network handles this link!

 

Had a look from outside the firewall – and think the site is really thought-provoking with some great images.

 

Regards

 

Jock Grady

 

Manager, LearnScope NSW

 

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com [mailto: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Leigh Blackall

Sent: Sunday, 7 August 2005 9:22 PM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

 

There's a hint to why that war keeps going on in that site:

[Leigh Blackall]

Not that easy. If I was handling a year 8 class, having a good old discussion, things going well, when one of the kids mentioned Banksy's graffiti but we could look at it. So we tried a Google search for it and got stopped again. Good bye nice year 8 class.

[rgrozdanic]

I absolutely understand what you're saying Leigh but the Department is damned either way - charged with the care of the year 8's (and even in TAFE, taking on board Maria's comments, there are still under 18's who are in your care while studying as well as all ages when it comes to the legal responsibility of not exposing clients to pornography or content which is sexist, racist and so on). So they have to implement things that will work most of the time. The other option is to allow any sites and ban problematic ones as they emerge but can you imagine some of the wowsers who would complain to a Current Affair because they looked up LJHooker for their real estate class and got sent to a porn site? (which happens all the time to people with computers but in this litigious age is problematic to organisations).

 

With the kid in year 8 mentioning Bansky's grafitti and the site being firewalled, what if a kid mentions the Wiggles site but you can't view it cos the servers are down? Do you abandon the class? Blame the department for depriving the group of a few minutes of "wake up Jeff"? Or do you ask them to describe what they saw or talk about, or to bring jpegs or mpegs or mp3s of it to the next class or perhaps talk about censorship and reasons why a site like that might be banned even though it doesn't contain porn or anything that would commonly be considered inappropriate in that context.  And in the meantime you could have a word with the techos about allowing the site through for the next class.

 

i'm not particularly fond of large organisations either but in this case I don't really understand why it's such a big deal - I'm way more concerned about things like training packages and what's being done to our universities if the truth be told.... :-)

[Adski]

Hi all.

When sites are DETnied like this, an anonymous proxy service may
provide an effective workaround:

http://surfshield.net
http://the-cloak.com

These services provide an effective way to curcumvent censors and are
regularly used by people in countries with actively restrictive
governments such as China.

Further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bypassing_Internet_censorship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia

And nice work with the accessDETnied Flickr tag Leigh, made me laugh!

Cheers
Adam

[Sean FitzGerald]

I think the real issue here is that maybe we need to see a complete shift in the way educators handle these sorts of issues.

Will Richardson has a post on it here - http://www.weblogg-ed.com/2005/07/26#a3811 - where he quotes Aaron Campbell saying:

And I agree with you that we should embrace our confrontation with nudity, sex, drugs, violence, and spam in an institutional context as a positive thing, an opportunity to teach and learn and grow. The more we avoid dealing with these issues, the more we give up sharing our experience and wisdom (?) with young people about them. These are part of their world, so they should likewise be issues in the classroom.

Will goes on to say:

That's not to say that we don't continue to filter out the worst of it, and that we take every measure to protect our kids from the ne'er do wells of the world. But instead of denying access to a ton of good content that's coming out of blogs and wikis and other sources, let's teach kids how to deal with this new world. We do our students a disservice if we don't teach them that spamming and file sharing is unethical and illegal, that pornography (and half of the magazine covers at the local convenience store) demeans and degrades and objectifies women in ways that should not and cannot be tolerated.

One thing I think is happening more and more with the new technologies and the openness and easy access of the Internet is that we are being forced to rely less and less on technological solutions to control people and their behaviours and more and more on communications skills, group agreements, etiquette etc. Personally I think this is a good thing.

The control comes in the community's ability to self-regulate and to arrive at agreed-upon rules of behaviour, and everybody has an equal role in keeping everybody else to those agreements. I think this points to a fundamental shift away from a paternalistic worldview, where we allow ourselves to become infantilised, relying on some authority figure (an editor or a forum moderator) to take responsibility for keeping people in line. I think in the past we have transferred this authority to technologies (password protection, levels of security or user access) and now we are moving into a different era. Wikipedia is probably the best example of this shift.

This could mean that part of the new teacher's role is to teach communications skills, conflict resolution skills, negotiation skills etc. Teachers probably aren't going to be thrilled by this new role of teaching social skills, but when you set up a bunch of blogs, forums and wikis for kids to interact on outside of class times, it seems that some of the responsibility for dealing with what goes on there (cyber-bullying perhaps) will have to come back to the teacher.

Sean

-- 

Sean FitzGerald
Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291
Mob: +61 (0)404 130 342
Skype: seamusy
Web: http://seanfitz.wikispaces.org/

Creativity is a central source of meaning in our lives... 
[and] when we are involved in it, we feel that we are
living more fully than during the rest of life.
-- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 

[rgrozdanic]

sean and all - i *totally* agree with what you're all saying

 

my question is - you're the director of DET for a month - what are you literally going to do? how much power do you have in the situation? you're governed by laws that you didn't create, you're liable for every breach, you're increasingly operating in a context where you're in locus parentis (where even children's moral education, physical fitness, yadda yadda yadda, is - according to community expectations - increasingly in your court).

 

if we're really going to discuss this in meaningful ways, we can't just point to a system and say it sucks and leave it at that.  how about some ideas for solutions that are possible and realistic? how to handle it (ie will richardson's and sean's ideas and observations) at educator and individual levels is another issue and obviously the most sensible solution but it still doesn't address the broader systemic issues like the community's expectations, perceptions and occasional mob-like behaviour, the mandate given to the department and all the current reasons why things are the way they are. 

 

i'm a bit stunned that i'm becoming an apologist for the department in this interaction - it's ironic, really - but i'm seriously asking you to tell me what you would do if you were in charge?  cos if you're not providing a fair appraisal of the particular situation plus ideas for solutions or strategies, what's the point of pointing to "them" all the time?? what would you do, that is realistic, do-able and legal, that could change these matters? because i believe that the minute we generate those sorts of solutions, it might get easier to start filtering them up the system and getting the change you want. don't you see that we *are* them? (or at least a number of people in this group who still work there are).

 

what am i missing here?

[Sean FitzGerald]

I'm not  teacher, or a bureaucrat withing DET or even an educationalist, so I don't really feel qualified to say what DET should do. I was just pointing out the trends.

But if I was director of DET for a month (and please excuse me if my solution seems a bit naive) maybe I would see if I could introduce a policy that explicitly states that part of a teacher's role and training should be to learn how to assist students to navigate the sorts of issues arising out of access to all these new tools and information sources, and how to help students develop social skills they will need to communicate and relate in this new online world. I would then back that up with some staff development.

I know some people will lament that this is more of the teacher taking on the role of the parents (in locus parentis) when it comes to teaching life skills and social skills, but I think the horse has bolted on that one. It's happened whether we like it or not, and I'm not sure whether there has been full official acknowledgment of this.

Unfortunately, from what I'm hearing, teachers undergoing  teacher training at the moment aren't even getting the most basic training in ICT, let alone the new emerging tools and practices of  web 2.0 or the read/write web. That are not learning how to use the tools (and accompanying changes in learning styles) that the Digital Natives are growing up with, and will come to expect in their education.

Sean

-- 

Sean FitzGerald
Tel: +61 (0)2 9360 3291
Mob: +61 (0)404 130 342
Skype: seamusy
Web: http://seanfitz.wikispaces.org/

Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions.
All life is an experiment.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

[rgrozdanic]

hahaha - which brings up another thorny one... :-)

 

if the rest of the world has to get used to the digital era, why do teachers need to be hand fed? isn't ICT just like any other literacy?

 

i remember being at a conference a few years ago and meeting some employees from boeing who were telecommuting and using cutting edge synchronous technologies, file sharing (and all lots of other stuff that's more commonplace now) as part of their daily work.  i asked one of them what sorts of programs they'd implemented to teach people how to use them.  she looked at me like i was crazy - "what do you mean?" she asked.  after more discussion it transpired that at boeing you just did it and learned it in the way you'd adapt to any changes in work practices - there were no programs specifically aimed at teaching people ICT literacies required to participate in the workplace. further discussion revealed that she thought public sector workplaces were sheltered workshops where noone ever took resonsibility for themselves - you can imagine the rest.

 

while (as a staff development person) i'd never advocate a no-PD workplace, i must admit that i did find this an interesting point of view (esp. in contrast to a couple of organisations i met through learnscope who had staff who refused to do anything unless there was a budget and commercial course available for it and whose helplessness sometimes really challenged me.  this included people who didn't "agree with" the internet and so on - typical "i'm the teacher and whatever i say goes" type of attitude. in the end i used to say to them - it's up to you - either learn or wait 10 years and find yourselves in classrooms populated by today's  5 year olds - your choice)

 

i feel the same way about the "community" out there who wants public organisations to take responsibility for moral education and all the other stuff but will then not cut any slack when it comes to trying new approaches or making mistakes or whatever (let alone acknoweldging reality, such as the newsstand mirrors that will richardson refers to and the world "we" as the community have collectively created).  it reminds me of eric berne's transactional analysis stuff with all the blamestorming and the "lets you and him fight" games.  in a world where we're increasingly infantilised and indoctrinated to feel fear and separation, i guess i'm starting to think "stuff this - what are the real issues here - let's bloody do something"

 

too much time on my hands today, obviously :-)  will log off now

 

r

 

ps sean - i think alot of school systems have adopted the policy you speak of where the curriculum in theory accomodates the real world and the need to discriminate, adopt technologies, navigate issues and perspectives, test assumptions et al, but these motherhood statements aren't backed up by policies that then allow the difficult and necessary scenarios that would then ensue, that would allow the learning to be real. catch 22. i think we're back to the beginning of this discussion again.  (barn dance, anyone?)  :-)))

[Leigh Blackall]

Hey Adam, thanks heaps! This is great advice. Nice to see that our DET is in the same league as the Chinese government too!
Everyone, this is Adam Bramwell by the way. He is based in Newcastle Australia. A very knowledgable fella who got me started with Bloglines, Picasa, Flickr and Delicious tagging. I haven't looked back since.

[Grady, Jock]

Thanks for this strategy Adam

Surfshield works fine through the Firewall, but unfortunately the system
nazis are one step ahead with the-cloak - see attached.

Regards

Jock

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
[mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Adski
Sent: Monday, 8 August 2005 4:31 PM
To: Teach and Learn Online
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

Hi all.

When sites are DETnied like this, an anonymous proxy service may
provide an effective workaround:

http://surfshield.net
http://the-cloak.com

These services provide an effective way to curcumvent censors and are
regularly used by people in countries with actively restrictive
governments such as China.

Further reading:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bypassing_Internet_censorship
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_Australia

And nice work with the accessDETnied Flickr tag Leigh, made me laugh!

Cheers
Adam

[Leigh Blackall]

flickr updated: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/accessdetnied/

[Leigh Blackall]

I don't mean to blow a trumpet, but Stephen Downes seems to agree that the trend of firewall security is,

"a trend that is characterized as much by its ridiculous application as by its fundamentally undemocratic nature. I know people have strong feelings about what it is appropriate to read or view in the workplace. But to try to enforce those views through a regime of site blockage is dangerous and dictatorial, and ought to be avoided."

Mind you, I had posted to the TALO blog, what Stephen was refering to well before Rose's points were made in this eGroup...

[Shaggy]

Hi rose,
I can see one major difference between the Boeing employees and your
average teacher which might explain their different attitudes to all
things tech.

Inside Boeing you would be working with folks who use technology every
day, talking with them about it and generally looking uncool if you
didn't embrace it. Whereas your teachers only see each other at lunch
time (when they're too busy bitching about burocracy to pick up new
tech issues) the rest of the time they're locked away their lonely
classroom fiefdom: teaching and trying to look like they're in control
(except us practitioners of pedagogical ambiguity, that is)

[leighb...@gmail.com]

I strong comment on the TALO blog relating to the firewall discussion::

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Donna <noreply...@blogger.com>
Date: Aug 13, 2005 5:35 AM
Subject: [Teach and Learn Online] 8/13/2005 05:35:02 AM
To: leighb...@gmail.com

I agree with you about the frustrations of blocking access to sites.
The aspect that I find most unsettling is in my experience it hasn't
been a committee or team deciding what gets blocked and why - it has
usually been one or two techs that have taken on the "responsibility"
of policing the internet for the organization.

To me it seems like a human resources issue - not an tech issue. If you
are hiring people who you can't trust then that should be the issue
that is dealt with instead of policing everyone.

Most people want to do a good job, but when you set up a police state
on your network it invites people to challenge the system. Why not
empower and educate employees and students instead of restricting them?

--
Posted by Donna to Teach and Learn Online at 8/13/2005 05:35:02 AM

[rgrozdanic]

is this true, though? i cannot imagine techo's going through 17 gazillion sites hand picking ones that we can or cannot see - that would be ludicrous and cause for uproar, not to mention a sisyphean task.

isn't the whole problem that the techos (who do more than just set firewall restrictions) are limited to using automated facilities to manage this issue and therefore are limited to coming up with a bunch of key words and any sites containing those get filtered out? i once used the word "lesbian" in an email to a friend from another department and promptly got a very curt auto-email from their department telling me i'd used a forbidden word and that my transgression had been recorded!!!  it felt really awful to be rebuked like that but i realised it was just an automated function and nothing personal so i just shrugged it off.

i've been thinking about this issue alot because i can see a strong case for both positions. we all use firewalls, filters and spambusters on our home computers and email software - why is that? we all know when we're at work that no-one is going to have calendars with naked girls hanging above their desks or nazi slogans blaring from ghettoblasters on their desks and we never complain about that. how is this markedly different? and, as i've said before, why not just speak to the techos when stuff comes up and ask them to let those sites through - we're all grown ups aren't we? they're not our parents - they're not trying to "stop us" from seeing things - they probably couldn't give a rat's, i imagine.  their managers are breathing down their necks and their best solution so far is to develop a library of search terms that may be inappropriate in the workplace and/or result in sites that may offend. it's the same policy stuff as the calendar and ghetto blaster thing except cruder and more inexact given the scope.

as i said, i can honesly see merit in both positions/poles, but what's absolutely bewildering me is the way this issue is making people feel so disempowered and "us/them" within our own workplaces. so i must be missing something obvious, i think.  in stephen downes' recent post about not being able to upload a file in a public sector workplace recently i remember thinking "why didn't they just make a phone call and get it resolved?".  or maybe i'm used to working with IT areas who either a) do what you ask or b) give good reasons for why they can't. (if they ever answer the phone, that is.. :-))

i'd like to see effort spent working on people's attitudes OUTSIDE the organisation, in the broader community where wowsers just love to call A Current Affair or talkback radio everytime someone breastfeeds in public or any government department makes a mistake or slips up in some way. they're the ones setting the bar - the public sector is the one jumping and saying "how high?"  in my opinion turning on the department is not going to solve anything until the reason they're so trigger happy gets addressed, or the laws change so that the public sector isn't so vulnerable against wanton litigation.

is anyone in this group a techo for a public sector org? i'd really love to hear their side of the story because i'm just speculating here on why things are the way they are... 

again, sorry for the long post. (and yes, i also agree with everything that has been said - this issue is really interesting to me because i cannot adopt one position - i really do see strong arguments on both sides)

r

[Leigh Blackall]

I think its a sign of a weak department, or government leadership, if it is so nervous to reactionary public opinion as it is expressed through the filters of trad media. There are other departments (especially federal) who make decisions and take actions for what they consider to be for the long term 'good' of the public, regardless of the short term reactions.

[rgrozdanic]

>>leigh said:" I think its a sign of a weak department, or government leadership"...

gawd - don't get me started on THAT one!!   :-)))))

i'm reluctant to become an unwitting apologist for bureaucracies of any kind so i'm going to stop my ramblings now and get back to something really useful like trying to get past level 6 of notpron - http://deathball.net/notpron/   (help welcome!)

cheers

r

[Joyce Smith]

Four Reasons Why the Blogsphere Might Make a Better Professional Collaborative Environment than Discussion Forums

“Here are four reasons why teachers should blog together:

1. Teacher Blog Articles come from the Person.

A teacher blog article comes from the person first, and the teacher second. Discussion boards are designed around topics. Blog environments are designed around people”

 

 

 

Anyone seen this one ??

 

Joyce J

 

 

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com [mailto:teachAndL...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of rgrozdanic
Sent: 14 August 2005 4:12 PM
To: teachAndL...@googlegroups.com
Subject: :: TALO :: Re: stop the wall

 

>>leigh said:" I think its a sign of a weak department, or government leadership"...