Consensus through Conference?

Posted on | November 22, 2007 | 6 Comments

One of the genuine strengths of Scottish education is its willingness to work, where it can, through consensus rather than through legislation. With the advent of Glow and with the burgeoning role for the collaborative possibilities of Web 2.0, one of the thorny issues needing to be discussed nationally, I believe, is that of Web safety and its associated issues of filtering, security and domain-blocking. A recent post by Gordon McKinlay, which spurred me to respond, has got me wondering if my friends at Learning and Teaching Scotland might be persuaded to organise a national conference on the issue?

Open and honest discussion of the very difficult questions that arise in this debate would be an opportunity for the various perspectives to come together, hear each other out and, just maybe, come to some kind of agreement on a way forward. At the very least, everyone might be able to leave such an event with a better understanding of others’ standpoints – never a bad thing!

It is an issue that requires discussion by all the interests concerned – teachers, headteachers, local authority advisers and administrators, network managers, parents, pupils and government – and it needs an honest broker to sponsor and manage the event. LT Scotland fits the bill, I believe.

Any thoughts?

Technorati Tags: web safety, web 2.0, learning and teaching scotland, hurricanekatrina

Category: Web 2.0, education, glow, network learning, safety, schooling, scotland, security, technology

Comments

6 Responses to “Consensus through Conference?”

Laurie O'Donnell
November 22nd, 2007 @ 10:25 pm

John,
An idea well worth considering. We certainly need to continue the discussion and improve the general level of understanding around these issues. An event might be helpful in this respect.

Laurie
joe wilson
November 22nd, 2007 @ 11:08 pm

long overdue

We make extensive use of Web2 Tools to develop qualifications and find teachers cannot access these while in school.
We develop awards around Internet Safety and Social Software to find that teachers want to teach these but that they and their learners have no or limited access to the necessary websites in some authorities .
Entirely our fault of course

This may be moot point – but issue is also tied to the access that local authority staff should have to internet and web2 .
I think there may be a bit of one size fits all going on in some local authorities and for some of them the issue may come down to this rather than any educational argument. Remember in many places computers arrived in the local authority administration offices long before they got to the classrooms and I bet their is still a bit of this inverted pecking order going on.

Best way to blow some of this away would be to showcase those schools and local authorities who have found ways to open up more services and what this does for cooperation and learning. I don’t think anywhere is perfect yet -but East Lothian looks good for many things.
Ewan McIntosh
November 23rd, 2007 @ 8:36 am

Not just worth considering but already being considered for the past three or four weeks, since the UK Media Literacy Summit (read: England and Wales) at which I spoke. I’m currently bringing together the stakeholders, from national organisations to unions, to school students who do this stuff every day…

An announcement will take place just before or just after Christmas with dates and other information.
Shane Addison
November 23rd, 2007 @ 9:37 am

Tried to view the post, but blogspot is blocked on work computers. I tried to search for copyright-free pictures last week but the combination “free pictures” is blocked. Despite this, a more specific search later on Google images returned a picture which should have been blocked.
Pupils regularly use proxy servers to access the blocked pages, and when a proxy is blocked, a dozen more take its place.
The filtering system needs a complete rethink IMO.
Ian Stuart
November 23rd, 2007 @ 8:51 pm

I would wholeheartedly agree.
May I recommend Stephen Carrick-Davis of Childnet International. I shared a platform with him at the HandHeldLearning Conference. He was impressive without being scare mongering. He called for balance and perspective.
Gordon McKinlay
December 5th, 2007 @ 9:25 pm

This would be a fantastic opportunity to discuss the issues properly and start to actually come to some consensus. We would need to make sure that real movers and shakers were there and that the real issues were discussed – from all sides of the arguments. Shall I get my diary?