The school board for Plainfield (Ill.) Community Consolidated School District 202 voted this week to block access from all computers tied into the district’s network to all sites owned by Google, including the world’s most popular search engine, gmail, Google Docs, and YouTube, the Chicago Tribune reports.
At issue is a change to Google services that creates an “all or nothing” acceptance for its products, school officials said. In the past, students have been allowed to use Google services — including the search engine and Google Docs. However, the district was able to prohibit access to sites such as YouTube, owned by Google.
School officials? What about Google? What did they say? Did anybody actually try calling them to get the name of hundreds of filters that would work in this case, including some that would be mischief-proof?
Or, here’s an idea: Have students and their parents sign a contract called an “acceptable use policy.” You can also set up restricted sites in most browsers, and kids could promise not to tamper with the restricted sites list. Furthermore, “school officials” could re-image every single computer from the central office, using a virtual desktop, if the district has invested in that technology, and reset the restricted sites list as often as necessary.
Teachers are complaining. National Honor Society students, who use gmail to communicate with each other, are complaining. The paper quoted one seventh-grade language arts teacher as saying that her students write essays using Google Docs, which allows students to collaborate with each other as they write. “My kids love this,” she said.
The school district serves four high schools with a combined enrollment of more 8,500 students, 18 elementary schools, and seven middle schools.
The Google search engine is one of the best research tools ever invented. Without defending Google as a company or a corporate citizen, the quality of its search engine has been attacked from every direction. Some countries have blocked it because of its power, and South Korea gave it a run for its money with the quirky Internet rules there.
But Google is fast, relevant, and by far, the largest catalog of Web pages available today. It continues to scan about 4,058 pages on this website alone. Blocking access to google.com is like putting a padlock on the library door in the 1980s. It’s no way to treat the 8,500 students at the four high schools.
In related news, YouTube, owned by Google, recently announced a paid service for online music delivery, the New York Times reported last month. The service is expected to be available by the end of the year.
