Go online to find out where your iPod is
By Corina Cheever
Technology Editor
Where will the school district draw the line? The Internet filtering has started to interfere with our education.
The changes in the Internet Acceptable Use Policy, a district-wide policy, were applied this year as more computers are available for school use. The school Web site offers a link that contains a variety of online resources for student use. The purpose of these Web sites is to provide useful information to the students, but I believe the Web sites do not contain enough information.
ProQuest is the biggest database engine is the most widely suggested search engine among Terrace, but when I have used it I was only able to find few Web sites and many of the sites contained the same information. However, through other search engines, such as Google or Yahoo, one can have more access to information written for and by a variety of groups of people with different viewpoints.
One site that was recently blocked has been causing unrest in sports fans at Terrace. Some students are complaining that CBSSportsLine should be unblocked. At first, I agreed with them but when I heard the basis for their claim, I found myself disagreeing with them. CBS, Yahoo, and ESPN are sites that offer access to fantasy sports, that is why CBS is blocked. However, CBS is useful because this site also hosts the stats of different high school’s sports teams. Yes, it is true that you can access these stats through news sites but since these sites are so big, they take a long time to load on the school network and lunch is now just 30 minutes.
According to policy, the District “uses an Internet filter that is designed to block access to Web sites containing inappropriate content. Inappropriate content includes such things as pornography and obscenity, gambling, and content that can cause damage to our network.”
Where in this does it say Web sites that are unrelated to our education. This statement makes no reference to non-educational Web sites, so in reality they shouldn’t be blocked.
The list could go on depending what your interests are, but MySpace, CBSSportsLine, instant messenger-related Web sites, and Livejournal, to name a few, do nothing to “cause damage to our network.”
How do district officials feel they have the right to block these sites if they are not deemed unacceptable in the district’s own Internet rules?