Area schools examine social networking's place in learning

At the last St. Ignatius board of education meeting, Superintendent Gerry Nolan announced a new policy blocking teachers, in addition to students, from using social networking tools on school networks or computers.

The Polson school district also adopted a similar policy this year, Polson Superintendent David Whitesell said. The Polson policy is new because it blocks teachers, as well as students, from accessing social networking sites.

Social networking is individuals grouped into clusters based on geography, interest, schools or some other common factor and how individuals are connected to each other across clusters.

For example, on Facebook, Bob belongs to the University of Montana network, because that’s where he went to college, the McKinney High School network, because that’s where he went to high school, and the France network, because he studied abroad in Paris.

Bob has friends from each network in addition to friends that belong to totally different networks—like the Boise, Idaho, San Diego and Egypt networks. Each of Bob’s friends are connected to each other through Bob, in addition to other connections they might have, and Bob is connected to people he’s never even met through his friend network.

The way Bob interacts with those friends is social networking.

Facebook is the current front-runner in the social networking popularity contest, but other sites such as MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter round out the most popular North American incarnations.

But why is such a tool banned from schools?

There are differing reasons, but each plays a role in the larger picture of why social networking is banned. The St. Ignatius board of education meeting, Nolan said social networking doesn’t serve an educational purpose and that was a reason for the ban.

Whitesell said he is concerned about the necessity for sensitivity with educators portraying themselves.

There hasn’t been a problem here, but we’re taking a proactive stance, Whitesell said.

Polson High School Principal Bill Appleton said teachers are discouraged from “friending” (requesting someone to be one of your online connections) or accepting friend invitations from students.

Prior to the newest policy, Polson already had policies in place that stated people, when using school equipment or networks, have no expectation of privacy for their online activities.

Polson School District uses software called SurfControl to block social networking (and other “inappropriate” URLs such as pornography, games, gambling, racist or violent sites) from being accessed on school networks or on school equipment, said Ceth Eslick, computer technician at Polson High School.

However, students have the potential ability to go around any filter via “proxies.” A proxy replaces the IP address of a host on the internal (protected) network with its own IP address for all traffic passing through it. Basically, it fools the SurfControl software into allowing blocked websites to be viewed.

The well-known proxies are blocked, Eslick said. However, it’s a constant battle to keep up with the smaller, not well-known proxies.

SurfControl blocks websites based on keywords the sites assign to themselves. For example, an online casino would assign itself the keyword “gaming” and the SurfControl would block it. With smaller proxies, they may not have keywords so they aren’t blocked, Eslick said.

Some Web sites are blocked that teachers use and need to be unblocked by network administrators, Eslick said.

Twitter (a microblogging Web site that provides 160-character entries to be “tweeted” to a list of “followers”) was blocked at the beginning of the year, however, one teacher at Polson High School uses “tweets” to update their classes on things like homework assignments, Eslick said.

Eslick unblocked Twitter in order to allow that teacher to use the tool for educational purposes.

Appleton said that if a teacher needs a Web site to be unblocked for educational purposes there isn’t a set policy on how to do that. However, if the need is made known, Eslick will address it.