Link: Internet filters block porn, but not savvy kids | csmonitor.com.
A colleague recently gave my name to a reporter from the Christian Science Monitor and here's the resulting article. I spoke and corresponded with this reporter at length, but you really can't tell from my comments. The beauty of blogging about it, though, is that I can explain myself a bit better here. And, while I am not displeased with the article, I am reminded that quotes can be taken out of context and morphed a bit. For the record, I don't think we've "chosen" to not filter content. It's just always been that way and we are not a public school that gets e-rate money which requires filtering. And, we don't offer classes in internet safety. I teach the principles in my classes, and my colleagues do workshops for high school kids, but we don't offer full term classes by any means. The general gist is correct... we want kids to learn how to use technology appropriately.
Speaking of news articles, if you ever get interviewed by a reporter, go to Google News and search for the reporter's name. Hit the RSS button on the left-hand side of the screen, and you'll have a feed pop up in your newsreader of all the current news articles written with that reporter's byline. You can also do this with Google's Blog Search, too.
I did this when I was interviewed by an AP reporter about Google's education efforts and it was so interesting to watch the news cycle involved. He probably interviewed me in September or October last year, but the article was not published until December. It first popped up in a California paper and then made the rounds to several big city papers (not the Trib or Sun-Times here in Chicago though) and then over the next few weeks, the article went international and also landed in papers of smaller cities. I think I counted that it appeared in 110 different publications over the course of about a month. In comparison, the article cited above has appeared in five different papers since April 10th. I'm fascinated by watching the spread of information, not because I like to see my name in print, but because this would not be possible without RSS technologies and it's amazing to me how we can manage information these days.
