Week 10/13 censorship and the Web

I am posting my response to the final discussion board as I want to keep it as a reference for myself:

Yes a student’s “right to read” includes controversial issues. Anything controversial leads to debate and argument and development of critical thinking skills, understanding of others, tolerances, and growth in character. It also makes life interesting. We like to include controversial resources in our libraries that help students grow and have experience with different cultures, thought, morality issues, religious issues, etc. I think these are all great things. Having policy in place to back up our selection of resources can help us in choosing quality resources and protect us in our selection of controversial items and the challenges we might face. Policy also needs to be followed in selecting resources on the Web.

When it comes to using the Web there are many differences between online, or “virtual” resources, and print, or “physical”, resources in our library. The physical resources in our library are there because they have been selected by someone and therefore have been evaluated somehow. Going on the Web gives you access to everything, evaluated or not. If we want students to use material on the Web it needs to be evaluated and validated. The physical resources in the library have been published and generally peer reviewed, to various degrees, for authenticity or quality, or money would not have been put into the publishing. Plus the TL has chosen and assessed these items. On the web anything goes. Anyone can publish without meeting any qualifications, and these resources are available at your computer (library) whether you want them or not.

As TLs I think our job consists of determining quality of information on the web. Generally students should be using peer reviewed sites (eg. Wikipedia), government and university sites, organization sites, and pay for use sites. In our course materials there are references to several peer review tools that we can use to select sites. Should students be randomly searching on the web? I don’t think so unless it’s on their own free time. Firstly, most students have not been taught effective search skills and waste time and energy surfing the net becoming overwhelmed with information that they have no skills in assessing. Secondly, we can not validate the information they are receiving unless the site has been evaluated in some way. The internet is not a source of information it is simply a tool, a medium. It’s what you connect to that is important. The internet itself is not a source of authentic information, it can be, but it can also be a public dumping ground.

I think the answer lies in restricting student’s usage on the internet while we teach them information skills-searching, analysis of information, checking references, assessing for quality of information, privacy protection, nature of the internet, etc, and while they grow and develop in these skills we give them more access on the Web. We need to follow a curriculum of information skills and Web use policy. Hopefully by grade twelve they can be fairly independent and responsible in their usage of the web.

No, students should not be exposed to inappropriate material. Inappropriate items are inappropriate and should not be available to students. The question is who and what decides what items are inappropriate. Generally the BC Ministry has decided what is inappropriate by using a secure intranet in our schools. Inappropriate sites have already been exempted from the Web usage before students even touch the computers. It is also important to have policy in place, preferable designed by a committee, to determine what is inappropriate for which groups of students as this is a far reaching debate.