Schools UNblocking Social Network Sites?

[mb2k01]

Hi All,

Has anyone unblocked / unfiltered Social Networking Sites in their school for pupils to use?
We are currently discussing the possibility, and I / we would be keen to hear your experiences!

The theoretical pros and cons regarding this are fairly obvious, and while I'm happy for general discussion I'm specifically interested in experiences gained from those already having moved this way.

Thanks

[linkazoid]

Blocked for Staff and Students here... The head asked us too as staff were spending to much "work" time on it and the students only insult each other....

Staff are not as bothered now as most access on their phones if they are realllly desperate, but most just wait until home time.

We have access because we sometimes get asked to check student profiles for evidence about fights and such....

Michael

[FN-GM]

We allow staff on them before and after school. It gets blocked during the day.

[linkazoid]

We allow staff on them before and after school. It gets blocked during the day.

Maybe i'll configure this on smoothwall during the break...

[gaz350]

we've had 18 months of facebook, when you 1st unblock it not many people realise. but slowly peoples habbits change.

now its like the students are at home, they login, logon to facebook, then start working.

this week we just banned it for 5 days, but the kids who dont want to work still find something else to waste their time on (surprise surprise) the good kids have just returned to getting on with their work.

Will feed back to see if the ban stays after half term with the looming coursework deadlines or if they are allowed access again, we'll see (SLT and Student Council will discuss 1st day of term)

[mb2k01]

Thanks to all who responded so far.
Was the decision to allow social networking made strategically or ad-hoc?
Has there been any fall out from opening up access?
Did you consult with staff or parents beforehand?

[JJonas]

We have moved onto an e-learning cast that allows social networking at the moment we block

Facebook for everyone
Youtube staff access - students blocked
twitter staff access - students blocked. we are using twitter for quick webpage updates.

other social networking blocked for students

[CyberNerd]

Some of our staff are quite keen to teach social networking using facebook as part of internet safety - we've not done it yet as other staff have reservations about it.
I'm mixed minded, but think it's more likely to waste time than cause any deep seated problems.

I think there is value in hosting inhouse social network sites such as mahara - but it's not a real world situation, so not sure.

[Tunster]

Being a boarding school we've blocked all social networking sites for staff/students during the school day. You'd be surprised how much bandwidth we've saved since going over to our new leased line and how quick most sites run. It's all incorporated in our IT Policy now (except for one exception for our marketing manager who uses twitter to update parts of our website).

Helps me work better to tell the truth (yes, we're bound to the policy as well!) .

[mossj]

when I was working in a school we had a 'privileged' group on our filter server, these where students that were allowed access to social media because they had received a recommendation from a teacher (usually the media teachers).

If they where caught abusing such things, they would be removed from the group and never returned, teacher recommendation or not...

[PyROm]

We block all social networking sites we can find here. Due to ICT teaching requirements we do allow two groups of ict students access during their ICT lessons. We also have to allow this same group of students to use msn messenger for their ICT course, however all conversations are monitored and logged with smoothwall.

We had a problem here with students creating facebook groups (both in school and from home) called things along the lines of "People who hate teacher xxxxxx".

[Sylv3r]

We don't allow any access to Social networking sites for staff or students in school. We use to actively publish our school facebook and twitter page on our homepage, but after being left with little choice I have had to remove this. See news release from the Director of our LA.

The following information was recently issued to all staff in Children and Young People's Services (copied here for schools' information):



Use of Social Networking Sites



As you might be aware, the County Council does not currently have a policy on the use of Social Networking Sites although we understand that this is currently under consideration.



However, pending the introduction of a County Council policy, everybody should be very clear that Children and Young People's Services does not support the use of social networking sites as a suitable means of contact with children and young people due to the necessity to adhere to certain professional standards for some groups of staff and, importantly, some very significant safeguarding concerns. This is in line with guidance and recent comments from CEOP, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre - more guidance and information can be found on the CEOP site.



Managers are requested to ensure that the use of sites such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., for the distribution of information or for personal contact with children and young people is not permitted and any failure to comply with this instruction could result in investigation and possibly disciplinary action.

[jmair]

We currently work backwords when it comes to internet filtering. We only allow certain sites.

This however (I feel) is counterproductive to students who then may not get 'real world' advice when it comes to using the internet. This is something I would like changed.

[tom_newton]

Glad to see someone using the IM filter!

[rh91uk]

Social Networking almost definetly blocked here. Opens up too much of a window of opportunity.