Calling it a "hacking scandal," NPR reported that less than a week after receiving their iPads in the Los Angeles Unified School District's $30 million iPad program, more than 200 high school students had already figured out how to bypass the filtering software installed on them. A scandal, maybe, for educators who just want to control students' use of the devices. But this is school not jail, … [Read more...] about Students hacking iPads: Mostly good, isn’t it?
filtering
.xxx won’t make porn more accessible IF…
…for now – until the blocking technology works with all browsers – families make it a rule that kids use Firefox and they download this plug-in for it: the MetaCert Add-on. Firefox is the only browser for which there's a .xxx blocking tool, but that's changing. It'll work with Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer, and Opera soon, and I'm sure the major stand-alone filtering products will soon offer … [Read more...] about .xxx won’t make porn more accessible IF…
Top EU policymaker on trusting our online kids
It's amazing to hear a policymaker say this: "We cannot, and should not, put our children and youngsters in a digital glass cage, hoping they will never encounter any harmful or illegal content online. This will simply not work." That was Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice president and the EU's top legislator for digital issues, in a speech marking International Missing Children's Day (May … [Read more...] about Top EU policymaker on trusting our online kids
AOL’s two new, easy-to-use safety tools
Not many Internet companies know more about parental controls than AOL, which has been providing a range of them longer than I've been writing about youth and tech (since '97!). So I was interested to hear that AOL was releasing two very Web 2.0 tools, one free, the other $9.99/month. First the free one: 1. Safety Toolbar This light little software app, which AOL says takes about a minute to … [Read more...] about AOL’s two new, easy-to-use safety tools
Reflection on filters, social media & school
School filtering works better when less restrictive and blended with teaching students how to "take responsibility themselves for using new technologies safely," said a study by British education watchdog Ofsted I blogged about in February). Educator Tom Whitby and the amazing comments to his blog post, "Deal or No Deal" got me thinking about this all over again this weekend. User-produced … [Read more...] about Reflection on filters, social media & school