Pinterest access for students

[mdrabble]

Our head of Art/Photography has asked if there is anyway year 11 photographers could have access to Pintrest or perhaps another platform for research? as students the will need to research initially for photographers and brain storm ideas.

 

Pintrest blocked by default due to some of the images available on Pintrest.

 

I have email the member of staff back and included the head as I feel I am not the right person to be deciding we should allow students to a site which does hold images not suitable for students.

 

 

So.... I am wondering, do other schools allow access to Pintrest?

[speckytecky]

Personally I wouldn't allow it. Pinterest looks great but as I expect you are aware, often the linked images lead to material through the images that's, ahem, perhaps not what students should be accessing.

[synaesthesia]

We don't, period. It's available for 6th form and staff.

If push came to shove, I think we'd be reasonably happy if it was limited to a small group but only under supervision (possible via Impero for instance)

[DJ-1701]

No, and knowing the content that can be on there, certainly not. It comes under social networking, and there is nudity pinned on some boards to boot.

[mdrabble]

I've set up a test policy with smoothwall to allow it on Art computers only and on a timed schedule so it is only available during the photography lessons.

 

The head wants to try that with the member of staff running ABTutor and to review it after a couple of weeks.

 

I have pointed out that the obvious to everyone so I have emails covering myself if all goes south!

[Mistert89]

I contacted them, and they told me it was not suitable/secure for "K12 schools".

[timbo343]

We've had this setup for over a year. The art teacher demanded it to be working. Ive still got all the emails with test screenshots on why it should be blocked but it was over ruled.

[bossman]

Blocked here due to school policy!

 

Even though the Art teacher implored our deputy head that she would make sure the students wouldn't access anything they shouldn't he stated categorically that they would not be allowed access due to the nature and content of the site.

 

I just throw it back to safeguarding policy within the school and let them powers that be make the decisions based on the content of such sites.

[sonofsanta]

We've unblocked the art teacher's profile - https://uk.pinterest.com/fredfinbar/ - for all students through the selective unblocking of certain subdomains. Art can then pin stuff onto that board and kids can access it in a moderated, curated area. Staff have got all of Pinterest unblocked so that they can pin new stuff to it.

 

Subdomains in question are...

pinimg.com
(passets-[a-z]{2}.pinterest.com) [as a URL pattern]
pinterest.com/resource
pinterest.com/fredfinbar

where the last entry there is the profile in question.

 

The biggest PITA is that Pinterest doesn't let you do blooming anything without being logged in, but all of that does allow students to sign up/log in; once they do it will redirect them to the homepage, which is blocked, but if they go back in the browser to the allowed profile page it will have logged them in.

[rad]

Pinterest is a moodboard of ideas that link to other websites that could in theory be blocked themselves. so catch 22 really.

[Sagima]

Art requested access a few weeks ago, smt agreed, pinterest allowed for everyone. One of the fastest decisions they've ever made.

 

Now if they'd just allow youtube...

[mikkydoos]

Only for staff. Definitely not pupils.

[Gibson335]

Our own Firewall went in in November, and we blocked it by default. Despite having informed SLT of the kind of material our new Yr 7 kids might find on there, we were instructed to open it up again. Some people refuse to learn until it all goes pear-shaped.

[Iain.Faulkner]

We had the same request put in by our head of art as well....we were the same in that we didn't feel we should be opening it up just at the request of the Head of Art, so passed it up to SLT. They told us to open it for the Art groups so we did :-)

[jmak]

Do people generally open it for staff. Blocked for everyone here, but I have been asked as they want to use it as a source of pictures - and there are some great resources on there?

 

Or is it just another place to cause copyright problems?

 

Tbh, I think most staff just download the pictures at home and bring them in....

[TechMonkey]

It's not really the copyright issues, it is that it is un-moderated image hosting (last time I checked Pinterest took a copy of the image and hosted it so any image from an objectionable site would be shown, you would only be blocked when trying to follow the resource) so if a silly teacher did an 'accidental' silly search a world of naughtiness could spill out of their screen and flood the poor dears minds. At that point the teacher would scream blue murder that you hadn't done your job and that it was all your fault.

 

The limited profile seems like a good compromise for pupils, for staff maybe only allow it non-pupil areas.

[kennysarmy]

To prove a point to our SMT I created a pinterest account for a test student and gave them access to Pinterest and within minutes was able to screenshot very inappropriate material !

 

Currently we only have Pinterest unblocked for Art/Photography students in years 12 or 13 - but obviously that won't stop younger kids watching what they're looking at!

[KibosJ]

We have Pinterest unblocked for specific rooms, at specific times, for a specific group of students on the understanding that the teacher takes responsibility for what is being viewed.

 

I originally said a complete no, but was then told that they cannot complete their GCSEs without access to Pinterest

 

It seems to be working well at the moment

Edited March 10, 2017 by KibosJ

[ITGURU]

I don't get a choice - if senior management want it, they demand it.

Same as I had to open up Youtube for the whole school despite my concerns.

[gdrinkall]

I had the request from our art department for pinterest access. I eventually got them to agree to accept access for year 11 only during set times after showing them the type of images that could be available. Luckily I have some tech savvy SLT who backed my arguments for being so restrictive

[ITGURU]

I had the request from our art department for pinterest access. I eventually got them to agree to accept access for year 11 only during set times after showing them the type of images that could be available. Luckily I have some tech savvy SLT who backed my arguments for being so restrictive

 

could you post/pm me some of the types of images you found so I can use this against not unblocking for students.

thank.

[kennysarmy]

could you post/pm me some of the types of images you found so I can use this against not unblocking for students.

thank.

 

I could help with that if you PM your email address and accept full responsibility for what I send through!!!

[ITGURU]

I could help with that if you PM your email address and accept full responsibility for what I send through!!!

 

Just the links please - not the images.

I'm NM so be fine! PM me on here. thanks.

[gdrinkall]

I cant find the actual images as it was a while ago but a simple search for Adult humour brings up plenty of posts that are not really appropriate for students, im sure some more "descriptive" searches would bring other items. I did find images of naked women, posts on sexual positions etc

[kennysarmy]

Just the links please - not the images.

I'm NM so be fine! PM me on here. thanks.

 

I don't have the links - just a screenshot I copied in to a WORD.DOCX for one of our Deputies.

 

Regards