From the Rutherland Herald:


Officials at Proctor Jr.-Sr. High School have banned access

from school computers to an Internet site that students have been using

to post to weblogs, or blogs.


Principal Chris Sousa said the decision to block the site from school

was made because blogging is not an educational use of school computers.




Of course, the students can still blog elsewhere, but it seems the main

concern of the school officials is the security aspect of students’

posting information online.


A valid concern, but I don’t think that altogether banning/blocking

blog servers is a sensible idea.  And the claim that blogs and

blogging are not educational should be taken with the proverbial grain

of salt.  Blogs and blogging can indeed

serve an educational purpose.  For instance, authoring online

journals can help improve writing and comprehension skills, and not to

mention communication skills.  In a previous post,

I wrote on a blogger whose professor encouraged the class to maintain

online journals to help improve writing skills.  Personally, I

would think that my writing style and skills had improved and developed

since I started blogging.  Practice makes perfect, after all.


Blocking blog servers is not exactly the best way to secure students

against unwittingly disclosing sensitive and personal

information.  Educating the students against the risks of such

activities is a better solution, IMHO.


Got a link to this article via Niall Kennedy’s blog.


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