The district recently unblocked websites such as Pinterest and YouTube for grades 9-12 on the new laptops. It states in the District Philosophy of Content Filtering (DPCF) that the original purpose of filtering certain websites was that some content served no purpose to provide a meaningful learning experience. The rationale for students’ access to the content, the possibility of encountering inappropriate content.
This new access is allowing students enrolled in Family and Consumer Science classes to create and collaborate on boards through Pinterest. They have already begun to use YouTube in the Child Development class as they learn about techniques for “observing children.”
A.P U.S History classes also have plans to use the newly unblocked websites. Classes plan to use educational YouTube channels such as the Gilder Lehrman Institute for United States History in class.
“We will watch TED talks and other videos to help our understanding of American History” said junior Bria Foley. “I think blocking YouTube just hindered our learning for unnecessary reasons.”
This new change is a result of multiple requests from building adminstrators on behalf of students and teachers who believe that students will benefit from having access to this new content. Before this change, the vast majority of videos that teachers wanted to use were filtered.
“It’s sort of easy to make a case for YouTube, even though you have some ridiculous things on there,” said Mr. McKinney. “You also have a huge amount of videos that are great and important and relevant and significant and educationally sound.”