the ADMIN pages

It's official: I am a second-semester senior. And just as the wonderful feeling of a looming graduation starts to kick in, a class like "Written Expression," my semester English elective, comes along to kick my ass.

The first semester of my senior year was a horrible joke, both literally and figuratively. This was the kind of joke that goes on and on, and you can tell right away that it isn't going to be funny, so you just want to tell the self-appointed comedian to shut up. That's how I felt.

The best period of my day was the one I didn't show up to most of the time (it being the first period of the day and all). Being a teacher's aide for Mr. Workman, a biology and chemistry teacher who I really got to know when he had me suspended in my sophomore year, was an awesome experience. He's an intelligent and funny guy, and from what I can tell, is a great teacher. Sitting in his office, along with a few other biology teachers, shooting the breeze, was the most engaging part of my first semester. It didn't matter what we were talking about, be it education, the newly-selected incoming principal, or technology. All that mattered was that I was doing something. Having to grade his quizzes and worksheets (the actual "work") was just an afterthought.

"Realms of Possibility," a semester-long English elective that focuses on science-fiction and fantasy literature, was a complete pushover. Case in point: Me, the textbook underachiever who does as little work as possible, got a 100% grade. Both quarters. I did not lose one point the entire semester. The teacher is a lifelong educator who has won a bunch of awards, so I'm not sure if he's actually just a bad teacher who gets all his students to like him (by making his class as easy as possible), thereby winning popularity contests, or if he actually did engage me, and I just haven't realized it. The jury's still out on this one.

AP Statistics: The easiest "math" class I've taken in high school. A friend of mine likes to say this class is an English class in a math wrapper, because of all the writing (he's a math nerd, and hated the class). Sure, I'm learning new things, but quite frankly, I'm not really enjoying the class. The knowledge I'm gaining just isn't interesting or relevant to me. That's just a personal thing, though--I like the way the class is structured, and the teacher is great. It's a full-year class, so I'll continue to trudge my way through it.

Archery/Fitness/Bowling: The state-mandated P.E. class. As always, what's to say? I've never found an engaging P.E. class. Although, this class was the first time I had a truly good teacher. A former department chair, he seems intelligent and competent enough to teach something other than P.E. He isn't the most popular teacher, because he runs his class relatively strict. That being said, I liked him. Not as, um, weird as most of my former P.E. teachers.

So, onto second semester, which started today (with a shortened schedule).

I've got "Stress Management" (yet another P.E. elective) during first period. As I said, I rarely showed up to school on-time when I was a teacher's aide, so this is going to be a wonderful wake-up call (literally). I've heard bad things about how strict the teacher is, but it's classroom-based (as opposed to dressing out for "physical activity") on two days a week. I'm cautiously optimistic.

Second period, I return to being an aide for the MIDI Music class. I took the class last year, and have helped develop a lot of the technology side of things for the teacher since then. Scheduling conflicts prevented me from having a formal aiding capacity last semester. There appears to be a shortage of computers... so I may be spending my time in a different room down the hall or something.

AP Statistics stays the same. The teacher gave us his "No Senioritis" speech today, although he conceded that after May 7th (the AP test), he won't care what we do. This is a common thread I see among teachers, though: they care almost too much. Sometimes, they fail to realize that there are students who legitimately, truly don't care about their class. Sure, to him, statistics is the most important thing in the world. But to me, it's just a filler class to fulfill the minimum number of courses mandated by the school.

And... my second-semester English elective: Written Expression, billed as a college-level writing class. From what I've heard and witnessed on my first day, the class is very demanding. Since this is the only real class I need to pass to graduate, I should probably be concerned. However, I've been told the teacher is very nice, and she does seem that way. And she did mention that she grades on the ability to write, not just for the mere presence of a grade (or something to that effect). Still, it's all rhetoric until I see it on my grade report.

If my gut reaction is correct, I won't as easily breeze through this semester, but at least now it's acceptable normal for me to have "senioritis." Even though I've had senioritis since about freshman year. I apologize to all my teachers in advance: I'm a textbook case of a student being apathetic about their education. What's the big secret? How do you fix that? Engage me.

I feel very geeky.

I'm a fan of the TechLearning Blog. The writers are all mostly top-notch bloggers, and the conversations they generate in the comments section are just as good as the posts themselves. The problem with the TechLearning Blog (and the entire web site) is that it appears to be stuck in the past. The blog runs a version of the Movable Type blog software that was released in July of 2006. My personal problem with this is that there is no way for me to keep up with comments: no e-mail subscription to comments on a post, and certainly no comments RSS feed.

So I made a comments RSS feed for them. Like I said, I'm feeling very geeky right now.

You may use it, but of course, I reserve the right to take it down any time I please. A big disclaimer: my script is extremely mean to the TechLearning server (and my script itself is very slow), so when I start getting cease-and-desist notices, I'm happily complying.

I also threw the master feed into Yahoo Pipes, in case you're only interested in a particular post's comments.

techLEARNING Blog Comments: http://rss.walterk29.com/techlearning.com.php
Yahoo Pipes: http://pipes.yahoo.com/kevinwalter/techlearning

For the Yahoo Pipes page, you just need to input the URL of the post, and it will filter only the comments on that post.

A few other notes:

• Only comments on the most recent 15 posts are shown, because that's how many posts TechLearning puts in their main RSS feed. This also means that if a post isn't in the most recent 15, the Yahoo Pipes filter won't do you much good.
• Dates are formatted to whatever TechLearning uses on their site, which I'll guess is GMT.
• Comments in the RSS feed are ordered by post (most recent), and then by comment (most recent).

Enjoy the conversation. You're welcome.

This post has absolutely no educational value.

Things have been said about Students 2.0. Most are good, a few are bad, several are skeptical. No links needed (yet). You know who you are and where you stand.

On one hand, we have our supporters. Those who recognize that student voice is an important component in the educational process. Does anyone dispute that concept? (We'll worry about implementation later.)

Our detractors. After all, we are not the norm. It's not easy being the early adopters. Are we (and others like us) the only students who care enough about their education to write about it? Yeah, no arguments there.

The educational institution has been ingrained in my peers as evil. Homework, standardized tests, reading "boring" books, learning "useless" knowledge, and on top of that, teachers are of course out to get us. Trust me, they are all bad. Except the ones like Clay Burell. He's the guy who linked all of us student "edubloggers" together. He understands the importance of student voice, and takes action about it. That, in my mind, sets him much farther apart from any other teacher or administrator with a blog, because on top of being a full-time teacher and "de-facto tech coordinator" at his school, he organized a global, student-run blog in less than a month. Don't get the wrong idea, though. I disagree with Clay on a multitude of issues, only a few of which he is aware of.

I do digress. For 85% of students, school is evil. Before I'm accused of such, I'm not taking a pessimistic view here, unfortunately. The top 5% of students care about the education. The other 10% don't necessarily care, but they understand school's long-term value. Sort of.

That can change. I can't speak for the group, and I haven't even bothered to read our mission statement, but I know why I'm here. I want to change the students. The digital natives and the digital immigrants can continue to be at odds over one another's methods. But when teachers see the change in their own students, they'll figure it out.

Moving right along, we reach the skeptics. I love these people, because I am so much like them. Pragmatism and logic rule our world. They see a bunch of students writing a blog together. The first reaction: so what? Their second reaction: what a bunch of punks. Their third reaction is to bookmark our site and come back for more. These are the people we, as Students 2.0, desperately need to prove ourselves to. More than the gushing supporters, who gave us awards before we even launched. (But don't get me wrong, we're very grateful.) More than the detractors, who have already made up their mind: students are made to be taught, never the other way around. We need to show the skeptics what we're all about. It's time to deliver. These skeptics are the people I want us as a group to challenge head-on. We don't need to preach to the choir, or come up with abstract, impossible, or improbable ideas. We need to find a happy balance--separating the wheat from the chaff. Like it or not, we made a splash, and we're here. And now, the pressure is on.

Like I said, this post has absolutely no educational value. Take it with a grain of salt.

(Cross-posted at Students 2.0. Take your important thoughts over there.)

You may have heard about us. After all, we hit the front page of del.icio.us, in addition to the number-one spot on popular and popular/education. I am speaking, of course, about Students 2.0.

Perhaps you haven't heard of us. In that case, let the numbers speak for themselves: In our first 24 hours, we had 5012 unique hits and 32,289 total. Five thousand educators are now aware of our blog-- and we haven't even launched yet.

Students 2.0 is a new, global blog that is (as our splash page says) "administered, designed, edited, and written by a global mix of students of varying ages, interests, voices, and points of view." Including me. We have decided that is time that the students had a unified voice in the edublogosphere.

Students 2.0 is the brainchild of Clay Burell (we call him "The Godfather"), an English teacher at an international school in South Korea. Over the past month, he recruited us, connected us, and mentored us into a self-sustaining entity of students who are interested in education. His guidance and support has been incredible (and occasionally, slightly overbearing :-P) throughout this entire process. My impression of Clay is that he believes in our capabilities very strongly. He won't maintain any special privileges on the blog after we launch. He'll comment and discuss alongside everyone else.

We have big plans and high hopes for Students 2.0. I'm seriously, very excited about this project. Hope you enjoy it!

The latest news out of Mountain View is the Google Highly Open Participation Contest, or GHOP for short. (Am I the only one who thinks of IHOP whenever I hear GHOP?) This program is an extension of Google's regular Summer of Code, in which college students are given the opportunity to work on open-source software projects. This is an incredible method to gain exposure for open-source software, as well as give those computer science majors a nice resume bullet. There were over 130 projects this past summer, and participants worked hand-in-hand with the software developers to create code, documentation, and do quality-assurance, all while being recognized and compensated by Google.

The Google Highly Open Participation is just like Summer of Code, except it's open to high school students. There are only 10 projects participating in this inaugural year of the contest, which was kind of a letdown considering the high number of projects in the regular program. I was, however, very pleased to see big names like the Apache Software Foundation, Python, GNOME, and Drupal. Also on the docket: Moodle, a free, open-source learning management system (LMS). Being the edu-techie that I am, I'll be focusing my time on Moodle.

There are only 41 tasks for Moodle as of this writing, most of which are claimed, but the contest runs until the end of January, so I'm hoping the Moodle community at large submits some more. I chose for my first task (participants can only claim one task at a time) to create a screencast on exporting grades in Moodle. I had absolutely zero Moodle experience prior to this project, but I easily set up an installation on my web server, and got down to learning.

And, here it is: how to export grades in Moodle v1.9. Again, I'm completely new to Moodle, so let me know if I missed anything.

Video after the jump.
Continue reading ‘Google Pancakes’ »

Prompted by all the educators making (and attempting to make) hotel reservations for NECC 2008, I started investigating the lodging options myself.

Heh, wow. Having never paid for a hotel stay myself, I've become painfully aware that it's quite expensive. As I am a starving high school student who can barely afford to keep this web site online, I've decided to solicit donations to send me to NECC 2008 in San Antonio.

I won't pretend that this is a worthy, tax-deductible cause such as the one recently launched by Steve Dembo, but here are a few reasons why it could be beneficial to have a student such as myself at NECC:

• First and foremost: education. What is it all about? The students. What do the students think? Do they actually care about education, particularly, their education? (Hint: I do.) Shouldn't students be given a voice, or at least attempt to see some of the reasoning and methods behind the minds of educators? (Hint: I'd argue yes.)
• You get complete, unfettered access to me. Teachers: run your technology-incorporating lesson plans by me. I'll tell you where students will struggle, where they'll be bored, where they'll be surfing MySpace instead of listening to you, and where they'll actually get it. IT people: run your filtering setup by me. I'll tell you where the holes are, how certain, enterprising students will get around said holes, and how you can fix them.
• I have grander plans. Presently, my plan is to submit a presentation for NECC 2009 (in Washington, DC, I believe) once it opens up. I have the framework down for a presentation on student voice: what it means to be a student, my own personal experiences going through high school with moderate technology availability, what you as educators can do to make it all more engaging for the students, where the divide between teachers and IT exists, and more. That being said, I'd like to get a feel for the NECC experience; take it all in. This way, my first year I can observe, analyze, and interpret. The following year, I'm ready to rock.

By the way, Dave Jakes gave me a good idea while we were chatting this evening: If there's an education (or other) company out there that's willing to underwrite my expenses on a grander scale, I could turn this into a whole 'nother ball of wax. You can pimp me out in your logo and gear, I'd work your booth on the conference floor, I'd walk the floor and talk about your products and services, I'd write about you on this blog, I'd do free consulting for you for the next 10 years (either technical or education-wise), etc. E-mail me. I'd be eternally grateful. Think about it: every post I make from NECC headlined with "Powered by [your company]."

I figure I'll need about $700-900 to travel to, lodge near, and attend NECC 2008. Help me out, please?

DONATE: Send Kevin Walter to NECC 2008.

Originally uploaded by JBrd

The first quarter of my senior year of high school comes to a close this week. It feels like this year is going rather quickly. Just yesterday I was complaining about the cafeteria system and commenting on how easy my schedule is. Both remarks hold true.

The cafeteria payment system is still a mess, although I am quite partial to their new (but sporadic) offerings of strawberry- and vanilla-flavored milk. They lost $10 of my lunch money last week, and after repeated attempts to put it into the system, the manager just gave me a line of credit she wrote down in a notebook.

My schedule is still the easiest courseload ever. (That doesn't mean I'm actually doing what little homework I actually have.) Aiding for Mr. Workman is always fun, whether I'm grading papers or just chatting with the Biology teachers in the office during first period.

Realms of Possibility (formerly known as Science-Fiction Literature), my senior English elective, is probably the easiest class of core curriculum ever. Barely any work, decent teacher, and nearly everyone gets 100% on every assignment. The perfect class for us worn-out, overtaxed seniors.

AP Statistics is perplexing me. Not the content, mind you, but the dynamics of the class. How can I actually learn stuff without trying at all? I'm pulling a solid B in my sleep--literally. I also love the moderately heavy technology usage. Classrooms with computers are pretty cool.

PE: Um, whatever. We start bowling soon. Even less physical activiy than archery. I often forget I'm in a PE class.

TCD has its ups and downs. Some days (like today) bore me to tears. Other times, I actually get work done. I'm on a C++ programming track (completely self-directed), but I spend most of my time playing Counter-Strike. The cool thing about TCD is that they really push career stuff like job shadows and internships. I've got a job shadow myself this Thursday at Palladium Executing Strategy, a consulting firm on the north side of Chicago. Besides the obvious benefit of getting out of school for the entire day, I get to shadow a pair of system administrators (my top career choice for the future) as they work. Kick. Ass. I'll be networking with a bunch IT people (the work-based learning coordinator at TCD told me to bring a resume--I'll bring my LinkedIn URL instead) for a day instead of being bored out of my mind at school. I'm also in the process of getting an internship set up with an Internet start-up I'm involved in (can't say much more on this, but keep an eye out for more... it's gonna be big). If that goes through, I spend two afternoons per week working with them instead of going to TCD. More awesomeness there--plus a coveted school parking permit if I play my cards right.

On average, my school week consists of 3 days of boredom and 2 days of enjoying myself. My goal for second quarter is to improve that ratio.

Dave Jakes recently wrote about the lack of student voice in education, and one of the comments rubbed me a little too far in the wrong direction:

It is interesting to me that you bring this up at this time.....due to the fact that we had two teenagers in WOW2 on Tuesday night -- and frankly I was pleased and on the other hand I was worried.

Pleased that they would contribute a great part to the conversation and we would learn from them. In fact, Arthus (14) (and I would like to invite Kevin W as well,) will be on our show in 2008.

Worried because we need to stay aware of that and choose words carefully at times because we have "youngsters in our audience. Not that they are immature, but adult chatter at times could be inappropriate....and we do need to stay wise.

Hmm. Perhaps I'm overreacting to the comment--I didn't comment on this at the original post in case I really am reading too far into the commenter's words. But that sounds like a warning to educators to watch what they say, because the students "just won't understand."

I don't mean to attack the commenter personally, but educators, please, don't mince your words simply because there are "kids" in your midst. I, for one, have entrenched myself in the world of educational technology, which consists almost exclusively of teachers, administrators, and other "adults" who work in the field. When I'm a part of this community, I don't want the same child filter I get when I talk to 90% of other adults in my everyday life.

Thinking twice about dropping an F-bomb when you're in the presence of a teenager? Fine with me. Changing your core message? Not cool.

Senior t-shirt

Originally uploaded by Kevin Walter.

The first week of my last year in high school is over. Senior year, 2007-2008.

Overall, I have a good feeling about this year. My schedule is very light. Seriously, I mean very light. At least compared to last year, where I had 9 classes in an 8-period school day. I only have 2 true classes this semester, with P.E. and a study hall/TA spot filling the rest of the morning. And in the afternoon, I attend the Technology Center of DuPage (TCD). Pretty easy stuff.

There are a few changes around school this year. Most noticeably, the school has implemented a new point-of-sale system in the cafeteria. At the register, we have the option of scanning our ID card or punching in our number. The advertised reason behind this decision is that money can be added to an account maintained based on our ID, and we don't have to carry cash. Additionally, if we do pay with cash, the change can be applied to our account. That being said, the system sucks. For the past three years, the lunch lines at my school have been absolutely horrible. In a school of 3300 students spread across 6 lunch periods, there are a total of 5 checkout lines (one less than last year), and this new payment system has made things worse. Besides the usual complaints about the quality and healthiness of the food, the cafeteria system needs a serious overhaul. Granted, the root cause is the overcrowding at my school, however, this new POS (more than one meaning intended) system in the cafeteria is a poor substitute for an adequate cafeteria. The ID cards don't scan easily at all, and I see absolutely no reason to waste time punching in my ID number if I'm just paying cash. The cashiers are untrained with the new system, to the point that I missed my TCD bus waiting in line for lunch earlier this week. Luckily for me, I have P.E. the period before lunch, so I'm out of there a minute early and can get in line for lunch. But that shouldn't have to be the case. In short, my school cafeteria is utterly ridiculous.

Also, according to rumor, they've (re-)instated the "Activity Bus," a bus that leaves from school an hour late for kids participating in after-school activities. I've yet to see this in written form (I seem to be seeing some serious communication failures via my school lately), and I haven't yet had a reason to stay late, so I can't verify this with certainty.

Oh yeah, and we get district e-mail accounts (school_username@csd99.org). BFD. Honestly, I don't see a use for this other than ABuse. Anyone want to correct my oversight here?

I actually intended for this to be a more positive post, not a list of complaints about my school. So, the originally planned content follows: comments on my classes.

Teacher's Aide (Mr. Workman): Mr. Workman and I have a complicated history, but he has first period off, as do I, so I signed up to be an aide for him. Workman ("J-Dubs") teaches Biology and Chemistry. And while it's true I have many "enemies" among the Science department at school, I have as many "friends." Weird. Anyway, he tells me to prioritize my homework for other classes over his chores, so first period has turned out to be my Stats homework period. Other than that, I put up "Meet in the Library" signs around the building for his classes when necessary, play with his iPhone, and troubleshoot his Blackboard and Windows problems.

Realms of Possibility (Dr. Antonoff): The class formerly known as Science-Fiction Literature features almost exactly the same content, according to the teacher. This class is the first half of my mandatory senior English credit, probably the least painful of all the choices offered to us. I've never been a huge science-fiction reader, but it's tolerable. Antonoff's classroom is plastered wall-to-wall with Star Trek, Star Wars, and other movie posters. He appears to be a really laid-back guy, and realizes that our class is just a bunch of jaded seniors who can't wait to be out of here. Medium-sized workload. Antonoff is pretty old-school, to the point that he types handouts in all caps, gives paper length requirements as hand-written pages, and imposes extreme doubt upon me that we'll ever step foot into a computer lab over the course of the semester. Oh well.

AP Statistics (Mr. Malczewski): The hardest class on my schedule, and it's not even that hard. Mr. Klaeren last year advertised this as "an easy senior class," but that remains to be seen. Two days are given to complete all homework assignments. Heavy computer usage promised. Heavy Blackboard usage. SMART board in the classroom, and Malczewski will post the day's notes in PDF format on Blackboard for absent students (or lazy ones). The teacher himself seems decent, slightly eccentric (but not so much as Klaeren), and willing to help. His mantra: "it's easy to get a B, but hard to get an A." Fine with me.

Archery/Fitness/Bowling (Mr. Macdonald): The mandatory P.E. class (thanks a bunch, state of Illinois). Macdonald seems extremely relaxed, yet intelligent. He also happens to be the department head. Not much to say about P.E., as always.

TCD - Computer Information Systems (Mr. Scurte): TCD is advertised as a self-paced, college-type class, and that it is. I breezed through the VB .NET track in under 3 days, something I hear usually takes 3 weeks (several of my friends are in this class for the second year). Now I've moved on to C++, with a simultaneous track in Linux system administration coming soon. Mike, Mitch, and Cameron (the aforementioned second-year students) are on the "Play Counter-Strike and Web-Based Flash Games" track. And Photoshop in their spare time (whenever Scurte comes around).

Easiest. Courseload. Ever. Feel free to envy.

UPDATE: (September 11, 2007 @ 7:19 pm) A few updates:

• The cafeteria system still sucks.
• The activity bus was formally announced and began yesterday.
• Mr. Macdonald isn't the PE department head anymore.

An interesting discussion grew out of a techLEARNING blog post by Steve Dembo the other day. He had just discovered the Meebo Repeater, an official tool from the makers of Meebo, an in-browser, multi-protocol IM client, that sets up a web proxy server on the user's home computer to bypass any school or work filter that attempts to block access to Meebo. Furthermore, he raises the bigger question of whether school filters provide a false sense of security for school administrators who believe that students are being stopped cold when they try to access a site deemed inappropriate.

He is absolutely correct, and I commented and said as much:

I'm a student in Community High School District 99, Downers Grove, IL. While our district uses extensive filtering on web sites that we students can access, even the most basic users know how to get around them by using any one of thousands of web proxies. However, web proxies are a dime a dozen these days. And for every one our administrator blocks, a hundred more spring up.

While the school's network administrators do everything in their power to block web sites, there are technical limitations to how far their filters can go. Aside from a strict whitelist of web sites--which would be disastrous for a learning environment--there's not much they can do that students can't get around with extreme ease.

Sorry to be so pessimistic, admins, but we're just *that* clever.

Ignoring Dave Jakes' joking reply suggesting they just ban me from the network (he's the educational technology guru for my school district), another user had quite a confrontational response to the post:

I am not sure publicizing this info is in a student's best interest. As a sysadmin we are well aware that some students know how to get around filters. So, we block all proxies by default and let through only those that are legitimate. But, now you've let them all in on that secret particularly at schools and districts where there filtering is not as tight

It is posts like this that drive a wedge between Educational Technologists and Information Technologists. When a student uses this technology to get around the filters and then kidnapped by a predator it is not you who will be out of a job but a IT person.

Quite a shock for me. I wasn't sure how to respond at first (although the OP did a pretty nice job). First of all, publicizing this info is nothing new. Meebo Repeater has been around for well over a year (I remember thinking how neat it was when they first announced it on their corporate blog).

Secondly, it is not just "some" users who get around filters: it is the majority. And it's no big "secret" on high school campuses across the country. There is no cabal of elite computer users at my school who are the only ones who know how to hack their way around the district's filtering technology (well okay, there kind of is... but we don't even have a secret handshake). Case in point: take Student Matt, a classmate of mine in English last year. A student who I worked with on a group digital storytelling project, wherein I held his hand through the entire process of using Microsoft Photo Story, quite possibly the most user-friendly software Microsoft has ever developed (besides Notepad). A student who, when we were given class time with the mobile laptop cart, watched music videos on Yahoo! Launch the whole period. Not exactly an expert when it comes to things of a computer nature. However, a short time later in the year while working in a school lab, I witnessed him access a web proxy (that he obviously knew from using before), type a few keystrokes, and was logged into his MySpace profile in the blink of an eye.

Continuing my dissection of the above comment, I sincerely doubt the commenter's district blocks all proxies. Unless they're using technology from the future that I'm not aware of, from a technical standpoint, there is no reliable way to block 100% of web proxies. Unless of course, they have a whitelist system set up, as I mentioned.

Finally, what ticked me off the most was his last paragraph that just feeds into the moral panic of online predators. Yes, we've all seen Dateline's "To Catch a Predator," and yes, Internet predators do exist. But the mainstream media has blown this problem way out of proportion. Every MySpace user over 30 did not join to meet underage boys and girls. But they are out there. And students need to be taught to recognize them. I've preached on and on about how dumb my peers can be when it comes to revealing personal information. This needs to stop. Then maybe IT people won't lose their jobs, because the predators won't have anyone to prey on.

Because I'm the first person to relentlessly criticize when people complain about a problem without offering a solution, here's a few ideas:

• Develop an informative program or seminar for students on the dangers of online predators. Make it interesting, hands-on, and relate to them. Don't give them story after story about kids who get attacked because they put their phone number online. Conduct such a seminar in a school computer lab, and encourage everyone to actually log into their MySpace profiles and take an objective look at what information they posted online. Also in this boat: don't spend $84 million on a filtering system that an enterprising student could crack with one hand tied behind his back.
• Explain the permanent connectedness of the Internet. Show them the Wayback Machine. Explain that just because they remove an incriminating photo or story from their social networking profile doesn't mean it's gone forever. Explain the logic that comes from easy, passive access to information. If you post your AIM screen name on your MySpace profile, don't put your cell phone number in your away message. (That last one happens ALL THE TIME.)
• Give a good reason for why web sites are blocked. This seems pretty straightforward, and it is. But my district doesn't do it. (Software limitations, I know...) Don't just say "it's for your own good"--even if it is. Rhetoric like that just makes me want to defy your lame filter.
• If you monitor students' social networking profiles, don't try to hide it. I was hesitant to put this, but I think it's important to understand you won't gain much from posing as a fellow student or reading the public version of a profile. If you pose as another person, besides violating that site's terms of service, you instill a deep distrust in the students that you as educators are supposed to serve. And most public versions of profiles, if any, are sterilized. The pictures from last night's party are only available to people on their friends list.

As for me? Yes, I have bypassed filters at my school in the past. I'm not trying to brag, or incriminate myself, but in each case I sincerely felt the site I wanted to access was wrongly blocked, and I had a legitimate reason I wouldn't mind explaining if asked. I don't do it routinely, and I don't have Meebo Repeater or any other proxy set up for using at school. Besides, 80% of the people on my IM buddy list are in school at the same time I am, so what's the point?

Educators, don't rely on filters to do your job for you. And if you do implement my ideas, I'll teach the seminar myself.