Here we go again - eSafety in schools

[GrumbleDook]

BBC NEWS | Education | School computers 'fail to filter'

 

Once again we have a company that constantly harps on about how eSafety is important and schools are letting the side down (and out products will fix everything for you!)

 

I've not used Zentec products before but I know some people who have and they agree that they are pretty good, and have a good background with helping schools understand why they need to have decent filters and protection in place ... but I am getting just a tad annoyed when people go on about how schools are not using technology properly to stop this.

 

So listen here Zentec and other companies ... Schools are doing a heck of a lot, so are local authorities as are the Govt. The problem is that technology is not the only part of the answer, especially not software for filtering and locking things down.

 

Do you want all kids to always use stabilisers on their bikes too, even to the point of they never ride a normal bike until they take a motorbike test? I have a host of other analogies that fit round the idea that it is more than just technology!

 

Classroom management and education is the biggest area to work on. Anyone can spend some time with their LA/RBC filters to tweak things ... or chuck a decent in house filter in such as Smoothwall ... but dealing with the kids when they are getting onto the wrong things is the big piece of work and locking things down is not the answer. Monitoring, a good discipline system (with consequences) and education is something you should be having a go at, not taking a pot shot to try and sell your products.

 

If you have an eSafety strategy that educates senior leadership in schools and helps the school the most appropriate set of resources and tools to work with, then fine ... but you don't. You scare monger. You fail to mention the work that hundreds of schools do on a daily basis to provide a safe and secure environment for students / pupils to learn in. You fail to mention the efforts that IT professionals got to when trying to get the best balance to allow for students to push the boundaries and still learn. In short, you actually do more damage than good in my personal opinion. Zentec, you fail to mention CEOP anywhere on the text on your website, you fail to link to the various Govt groups dealing with eSafety or even the Byron review!

 

And you want me to take you seriously?

 

[sparkeh]

Typical of modern journalism:

1) Write a shocking headline that in reality they know nothing about

2) Put no research of their own in the story

3) Create a media storm

4) Move on to next topic du jour.

 

When you read an ill researched story like this is really highlights to you how much crap the rest of the news must be.

[broc]

There is a strong argument that says if you never allow a child to make a mistake they will never learn the difference between right & wrong.

 

I think the point that Grumbledook makes about classroom management & education is crucial, along with effective monitoring, tracking & logging tools so that we are able to find out what is going on and the means to block access to material we know is inappropriate.

[Diello]

Usual FUD.

 

What I find interesting in the article, is although they're blaming Internet filtering, the article seems to be able content downloaded from Mobile Phones, brought in from Memory Keys etc., which wouldn't touch Internet filtering anyway. Although that that is a seperate issue that does need to be looked at as part of the wider e-safety agenda.

[GrumbleDook]

They had to cover all bases for the products Zentec sell?

[K.C.Leblanc]

Very well said guys. Education is more important, I doubt there's a student in the land who doesn't have access to unfiltered internet (most of them will have it their own homes).

 

And as for mobile phones which are mentioned throughout the article. How would it even be possible for schools to monitor students private mobile phones. The government powers needed would be considered a massive invasion of privacy. And of course schools clouldn't ban mobile phones, the daily mail says 67% of students who leave home without a mobile phone will be eaten by a knife wielding Peadophile wearing a hoody.

[tom_newton]

Oh boy. Image filtering. My favourite.

 

One day someone will show me some that works*. On that day, we will put pen to paper and sign it up as an option for Smoothie.

 

*works: acceptable accuracy, low latency in high use scenarios, deals with thumbnails

[westleya]

Oh boy. Image filtering. My favourite.

 

One day someone will show me some that works*. On that day, we will put pen to paper and sign it up as an option for Smoothie.

 

*works: acceptable accuracy, low latency in high use scenarios, deals with thumbnails

 

Oh, this reminds me of the time we tested Securus. I spent a 'hateful' afternoon looking for skin on the internet. Just awful...

[pete]

Oh boy. Image filtering. My favourite.

 

One day someone will show me some that works*. On that day, we will put pen to paper and sign it up as an option for Smoothie.

 

*works: acceptable accuracy, low latency in high use scenarios, deals with thumbnails

 

Ye dreaded "skin tone filters". Ugh. It's possible to do it accurately through converting the images on the fly, but it really doesn't scale well on one filter device and 400 concurrent users with access to google image search.

[localzuk]

Whatever happened to personal responsibility?

 

We got internet access back when I was in school and filtering was awful. There was a hard and fast 'if you're caught looking at something inappropriate, you'll be punished' rule, and it worked.

[bossman]

The problem as most on here will agree is that of consequences not being effectively managed, in other words non existent!

 

I often catch out students breaking the AUP but what am I told, "sorry we can't really do anything to them except inform their parents" except their parents don't give a damn as they would ensure their children are respectful at all times of the laws of the land.

 

"Ignorance is bliss" but blissful ignorance is just that "ignorance" and that is one thing that gets my goat. :mad:

[sted]

Do you want all kids to always use stabilisers on their bikes too, even to the point of they never ride a normal bike until they take a motorbike test? I have a host of other analogies that fit round the idea that it is more than just technology!

 

but atm id say government etc do

 

as a kid (and adult) you NEED to fail for several reasons, you need to learn how to deal with it as its going to happen, you learn much more from getting something wrong than right, you learn your limits and so on

 

health and safety etc is taking that away and putting people in bubbles so that when you come in contact with anthing real or yo do fail people dont know what to do

[AngryTechnician]

I read the article on BBC this morning, started to rant internally about how it was clearly a press-release driven piece of faff, then remembered that I stopped taking BBC News seriously a long time ago when I noticed the vast majority of their articles are completely uncredited (I know I've mentioned this before, but it's so telling in cases like this).

 

In my mind this sort of rubbish makes a good case for making Media Studies compulsory at KS4. Not an entire GCSE, mind, but a decent module on critical media analysis would go a long way towards getting the next generation to realise just how much drivel and bad reporting there is in the press.

 

Now someone will tell me this already exists, and I will show my age by how much things have changed since I did my GCSEs...

[alan-d]

They had to cover all bases for the products Zentec sell?

 

What they sell does not work out the box. We spent months getting a fix which eventually sorted one problem but now there is another. It now sits on a server waiting to be sorted but we have moved on since. It was supposed to be a 'bolt on' for PCE - no chance!

[maniac]

What I find interesting in the article, is although they're blaming Internet filtering, the article seems to be able content downloaded from Mobile Phones, brought in from Memory Keys etc., which wouldn't touch Internet filtering anyway. Although that that is a seperate issue that does need to be looked at as part of the wider e-safety agenda.

 

As long as it's not harming the system, we couldn't care less what's on the students memory sticks, that is their responsibility and the responsibility of the parents. As long as the material doesn't originate from within the school, as far as we're concerned it's not our responsibility. You have to draw the line somewhere, and that is where it is drawn in our school.

 

Mike.

 

EDIT: I will add that if we do find 'unsuitable material' the school does take action, but we don't pro-actively go looking for it like we might in their home areas.

Edited July 14, 2009 by maniac

[synaesthesia]

Some very typical comments in that article, none of it actually useful or suggestive to schools (or anyone else for that matter) interested in doing something about it. It all harks back to taking responsibility away from people and putting the onus onto those in charge; clearly the problem lies yet again with the big D word that noone is allowed to say - discipline.

 

Oddly enough, I was caught having brought into school as many fleshy pictures as the storage medium would allow (720k floppy!). Would have gotten away with it, if someone hadn't quickly reached over my shoulder and printed 99 copies to the printer which happened to be next to the tutor's desk Sure enough, detention ensued along with the police asking where I had obtained such material. "The Internet" in 1994 was an answer which appeared to baffle them. However, the stern telling off, the firm slap round the back of the head followed by a sly thumbs up from the old man, then a real slap round the back of the head from the mother, and the lengthy detention meant I learned a lesson. But these days, people are more interested in wrapping everyone up in cotton wool rather than using it to dab on some metaphorical TCP. And as a result, people do not learn.

[Geoff]

I'm amazed this thread hasn't attracted a Zentek sales employee yet. :S Maybe you have to say their name 3 times or something..

[AngryTechnician]

As someone pointed out to me shortly after I tried to link here from my blog, it's in 'Behind the Red Door', so you have to be registered to see it, and it doesn't get crawled by search engines.

 

(I removed the link from my blog, FYI).

[Geoff]

Well i just approved the linkback so..

[Dos_Box]

I've used Zentek in the past and was not impressed.

 

I won't embarrass them in public with their shameful antics, but needless to say there were a few.

 

The staff turnover was shocking and I got tired of the spiel from each new sales rep saying how "Zentek is changing".

 

Zentek is changing. They are getting bigger and more vocal. Whether this makes their products any better is anyone's guess, but spreading FUD is a rubbish tactic, which IMHO makes me run a mile in the direction of a product which sells itself not only on past reputation, but on good old fashioned technical expertise and feature lists (which work).

Edited July 16, 2009 by Dos_Box

[AngryTechnician]

Well i just approved the linkback so..

 

There was a bit of a delay between me posting and then having it pointed out to me that I'm a numpty.

 

A regular commenter on my blog (not sure if he is registered here, credit to Jon if he is) posted a link to a longer and better written article on this: Ex-cop warns of nasties some systems can't find

 

Still quite a bit of scaremongering, but does at least acknowledge near the end that education and policies are important (backed up by Zentek software, of course).

[apoth0r]

I'm sure most kitchens in schools have a sharp knife of some kind, maybe they can create some software to prevent the worst happening there too!

What's wrong with kids missing their breaks/lunchtime and being held after school?

When I was teaching ICT that was the first thing I did to teach a lesson then perhaps filter so it didn't happen again. Theres a lot of difference between "stumbling upon" and actually looking for the content, and it's very easy to see which is which.

It only takes a bit of common sense!!!

[cdmckeown]

Dear Edugeeks

 

As a Director of E-Safe Education, I am keen to reassure all members of the Edugeek forum that we fully support the important work undertaken by ICT Technicians and Network Managers in achieving best practice for e-safety. We are 100% behind you.

 

We are also keen to set the record straight by providing you with a copy of the research report from which the BBC’s article stemmed. You will see that the research simply highlights a need for more effective management of multimedia content coming into school from a variety of offline sources, coupled with better e-safety guidance and advice for young people to help them better understand these issues.

 

I would highlight that we took on board your previous comments very seriously and endeavoured to produce, in our opinion, a balanced release that was careful to highlight that there should be support in addressing these issues.

 

Should any of you wish to see a summary of the key findings, please contact me directly.

 

You may also want to look at a URL that displays the original unedited press release that explains the real issue that we were highlighting:

 

o The URL: Estimated ten percent of harmful multimedia content remains undetected on school computers » Education » 24dash.com

 

o Noting that our data refers to content uploaded onto the school’s network, not data from personal devices belonging to pupils.

 

I would very much welcome the opportunity to discuss further any of the issues raised today and can be contacted on Tel: or e-mail: [email protected].

 

Many thanks

 

Colin McKeown, Director at E-Safe Education Ltd

[AngryTechnician]

Mr McKeown,

 

What I would be primarily interested in hearing more about is the methodology for the research, and if it has been peer reviewed in any way (which I strongly suspect it has not). The fundamental problem with your press release is that you are quoting research done by your own company that (shock horror) supports your business model perfectly, yet you omit any context in which to evaluate the quality of that research.

 

While I recognise that this is the way many companies promote themselves, engaging an emotive topic such as this with that sort of tactic is disingenuous, and under these circumstances it's not even remotely surprising that misleading reporting has resulted (such as the BBC News article, which omits swathes of the press release you linked to).

[synaesthesia]

I'm amazed this thread hasn't attracted a Zentek sales employee yet. :S Maybe you have to say their name 3 times or something..

 

oooh now you've done it!