The Age's Letter to the editor (Filter the Filth, 27th June 2011) called for schools and the education department to "do all within their power to prevent further students from being corrupted" via the school provided netbooks. Background: In 2009 it was decided that every student in years 9-12 would have a laptop provided for free (government funded). The success of this implementation (or lack thereof) is beyond the scope of this post, however it would appear that some students have been accessing inappropriate content outside of school hours using the netbooks. Surprise surprise. The individual in the article above was outraged that filtering software was not installed on the laptop.
Do parents honestly still expect content filtering to absolve them of any responsibility regarding their childrens' online actions? I work in a school that uses the state-provided internet access, which is heavily filtered. I am sure noone would be surprised to learn that 'inappropriate' content has been accessed within the school from time to time. If I felt so inclined, I could probably access similar content very easily within a matter of seconds. These so-called "filters" are very easy to circumvent.
Surely we would have wider ranging success if, as schools and as families, we help our children to understand the ethics of their online actions, and the short and long term effects of the digital footprint they are creating every day. I believe some schools are already doing an excellent job of this. Of course nobody expects parents to be able to "watch a child 24 hours a day", but having filtering software installed is not going to be the 'big brother' that some expect it to be.
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