The blogbanning wiki I threw up a couple of weeks ago got an interesting addition yesterday: the start of a “Gray List” of sites that we can test against district filtering systems to see just how widespread the blog banning “problem” is. Tom, who based on his recent post seems to have authored the edit, writes:
The idea here is not to test things (i.e., porn) that obviously should be blocked. The objective is to test the availability of resources that are plausibly useful or at least harmless. The main categories are blogs, blog hosts, search engines, web 2.0 tools, news, social networking. Perhaps there are more.
Check out the list and add some sites to it if you feel so inclined. The wiki password is “blogs.” And check out the script at Tom’s site. If he reports that it’s working, we may want to spread the word and start collecting some hard data…
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So what does it mean when the blogbanning wiki is blocked?
Book Review: Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms…
I’ve reviewed books on blogging for business, for casual bloggers and today- teachers. Will Richardson……
[…] I’ve just contributed to the “graylist” on Will Richardson’s Blogbanning Wiki. The neat thing about this idea is that it moves beyond drum-beating towards finding a solution. Such broad-based, grassroots efforts will help the filtering discussion chips fall where they may. […]
My school is severely blocked. They block Amazon.com because kids might want to buy books with nude pics. However, the only blogs they have blocked are ones that are created through a blogsite. Blogger, typepad etc. If your blog has it’s own name or is pointed to a domain name that doesn’t identify it as a blog.. it comes through
Hmmm…well, the blogbanning wiki is blocked. Says it’s a “personal page.” Too bad, but not surprising.
[…] Finally, Weblogg-ed brings us something I would definitely like to try out, in light of recent happenings with this blog: A wiki on blog-banning that includes a gray list of legitimate web sites that you can use to see what exactly your school district is blocking in the way of blogs and social software sites. The irony: Most teachers who try it find that their school systems are banning the wiki itself! • • • […]