Until a couple of weeks ago, Twitter was blocked and NING networks are still blanket blocked although I've had some success in getting individuals NING unblocked.
In the independent residential sector (LAAC) there is no common approach to 'blocking'. Some schools have recently had very few, if any, restrictions, though this seems to have been tightened significantly.
Well done really interested in results here been looking for broader national look at this. This is really useful start.
I was told at one point that Wordpress was favoured Scottish educational blogging tool and it was mostly but not unviversally available.
daibarnes - 15 years ago
We've been exploring websense (worlds largest I/net filter company) recently and it is a very powerful tool. You can set it to allow certain groups of users access at certain times of the day. Therefore you can give one year group access to to a site just for the time a unit of work is being taught, etc.
Also, there is a facility whereby you can give a 'working days' credit of x*10 minutes, limiting it to say 30 minutes a day, so overuse isn't an issue.
Another nice feature is having an extra click that allows access to the site 'for work purposes only' making sure the student is acknowledging the use of the site is only acceptable if directly related to their studies.
These features, and more, are important for us teachers to be aware of because we can use them for negotiation leverage when requesting a site be allowed, even when the moral high ground is being occuppied by those with the authority. You could literally open up a site for a specific age group only when you teach them. How cool is that?
Our school website is built on the typepad blogging platform. If our LA ever decided to block typepad (or it's big sister sixapart) we'd be in deep doo-doo as the site provides lots of our out of school learning opportunities.
In Glasgow Edubuzz was blocked!
North Lanarkshire unblocking is available.
iTweet and anything that uses the twitter api (ie you can build your own;-)) gets round block so far.
lynnb1968 - 15 years ago
I can't access any blogs at all in my place of work...tried to access twitter today, but that is filtered, too.
Whilst most of these are blocked in my case, it's possible to access individual subdomains / blogs if we request them. For example, I can access our school's Posterous blog, but can't access any others.
Also, I can't access Twitter.com at school, but I can use 3rd party tools like Twhirl to read and post tweets.
In terms of access, I'm quite lucky in that the providers of our filters are quite receptive to requests for sites to be unblocked.
I think you need to consider which as most *likely* to be blocked in future as well. I can see Twitter being blocked by my local authority as soon as it comes on their radar.
Blogger's been blocked in the past - perhaps Typepad the best option as a paid-for service?
Until a couple of weeks ago, Twitter was blocked and NING networks are still blanket blocked although I've had some success in getting individuals NING unblocked.
In the independent residential sector (LAAC) there is no common approach to 'blocking'. Some schools have recently had very few, if any, restrictions, though this seems to have been tightened significantly.
Well done really interested in results here been looking for broader national look at this. This is really useful start.
I was told at one point that Wordpress was favoured Scottish educational blogging tool and it was mostly but not unviversally available.
We've been exploring websense (worlds largest I/net filter company) recently and it is a very powerful tool. You can set it to allow certain groups of users access at certain times of the day. Therefore you can give one year group access to to a site just for the time a unit of work is being taught, etc.
Also, there is a facility whereby you can give a 'working days' credit of x*10 minutes, limiting it to say 30 minutes a day, so overuse isn't an issue.
Another nice feature is having an extra click that allows access to the site 'for work purposes only' making sure the student is acknowledging the use of the site is only acceptable if directly related to their studies.
These features, and more, are important for us teachers to be aware of because we can use them for negotiation leverage when requesting a site be allowed, even when the moral high ground is being occuppied by those with the authority. You could literally open up a site for a specific age group only when you teach them. How cool is that?
Our school website is built on the typepad blogging platform. If our LA ever decided to block typepad (or it's big sister sixapart) we'd be in deep doo-doo as the site provides lots of our out of school learning opportunities.
In Glasgow Edubuzz was blocked!
North Lanarkshire unblocking is available.
iTweet and anything that uses the twitter api (ie you can build your own;-)) gets round block so far.
I can't access any blogs at all in my place of work...tried to access twitter today, but that is filtered, too.
Whilst most of these are blocked in my case, it's possible to access individual subdomains / blogs if we request them. For example, I can access our school's Posterous blog, but can't access any others.
Also, I can't access Twitter.com at school, but I can use 3rd party tools like Twhirl to read and post tweets.
In terms of access, I'm quite lucky in that the providers of our filters are quite receptive to requests for sites to be unblocked.
I think you need to consider which as most *likely* to be blocked in future as well. I can see Twitter being blocked by my local authority as soon as it comes on their radar.
Blogger's been blocked in the past - perhaps Typepad the best option as a paid-for service?