Barack, Brainpop and the Pope: everyone’s on YouTube….. apart from schools?

In East Lothian we recently made the decision to un-block You Tube. The reason that we made this decision is because the popular video sharing site YouTube is a powerful education resource that can be used to enhance the learning experience of children. I’m not saying that there isn’t some inappropriate content on You Tube but we felt we should trust our professional staff, give them ownership of this content and decide how best they would manage their individual classroom experiences. I think the East Lothian decision to un-block YouTube is also sending a clear message to the children in East Lothian, ‘that we trust them’.

Lots of organisations are now embracing new (web 2.0?) technology such as YouTube to improve communication with their audience, develop marketing opportunities, attract new clients and most importantly to share information. In doing so forward thinking organisations increase transparency and build up a culture of trust. The new USA Obama administration is doing just that as their Whitehouse.gov website gets a complete overhaul. The BBC reports that

‘Mr Obama's new media team is letting search engines index almost everything on the site. By contrast, after eight years of government the Bush administration was stopping huge swathes of data from being searchable. The move is part of President Obama's larger push to make the US government more open and transparent.’

Obama has embraced new technology throughout his election campaign. The Whitehouse has a YouTube Channel and we also know that the president’s team likes to keep people up-to-date with the latest news on Twitter.

Also in the news this week was that Pope Benedict XVI has also launched his own dedicated channel on YouTube, where he talks of a, ‘digital generation’. The BBC reports that,

‘The 81-year-old Pope's first YouTube message spoke of a new way to spread hope around the world:

"You must find ways to spread - in a new manner - voices and pictures of hope, through the internet, which wraps all of our planet in an increasingly close-knitted way," he said in Italian.’

Also this week I received a ‘tweet’ from the team at BrainPop.co.uk.

They launched their YouTube channel before BETT 2009 and have finally up-loaded some content. Including some of the very dodgy looking bloke below!

Finally, what does this all mean? Well, quite frankly if YouTube and other Web based Technologies are good enough for the Barack Obama (the most powerful man in the world), Pope Benedick XVI and forward thinking education suppliers such as BrainPop. Then why are YouTube and other free education tools blocked by so many schools and local education authorities? As the Obama administration takes an exciting fresh approach to transparency, education and promoting community – perhaps its time all UK schools followed the same lead?

What do you think? Why don’t you add your comment here or to the Internet Filtering discussion on the Education 2020 Wiki.

Comments

[joe wilson]

Great blog post about an on going national issue that desperately needs sorted.
SQA will use some social tools for design of assessment elements of curriculum for excellence. We'll do all we can to open up the internet for learners and teachers. Still never sure if we are all just in some echo chamber on this one -this issue is at least 10 years old and comes around every year http://www.joecar.demon.co.uk/2008/05/little-britain-carol-sketch.html

Or you could join the Keep Bray , Obama and The Pope out of Scottish Education Campaign

Incidentally it is also keeping many flexible and alternative means of curriculum development and assessment out of our schools too.

[Lynne]

I've been looking at human rights with S6 in Soc Ed and we noted that "freedom of expression" also meant the right to access information. I am about to spend the afternoon looking for videos on YouTube that I want to use in school on Monday - I had over 3 hours preparation time yesterday when I could have done this, but I'm not allowed, but apparently ok for me to spend the time at home doing this on top of other school work.
Our music teacher has come to us from England - he was talking about how if in the past he'd wanted to show the class examples of particular bands he could quickly access them online, but no longer.
I think if it's good enough for Barack Obama, Gordon Brown, the Pope and the Queen then it should be good enough for me!

[David Rogers]

I get around this issue by using a mobile broadband dongle. However, not a viable option for whole classes although I can use any site at the front of the classroom.

Think that the human rights aspect is an interesting angle. The main question is though how can we get the decision makers to listen. Should we just go to the top and get Ed Balls to make the call? If so, what do we do? Are our government as engaged with Web 2.0 as Obama? A quick visit to the PM http://www.number10.gov.uk/ suggests that they are. Youtube, flickr etc before Obama but did that get the same attention??

David

[Xannov]

Totally agree with your comments here. My LA bocks YouTube, and Google Video, and many other sites and applications (like TinyURL - used in twitter to pass on educational websites in a short link) all for "the safety of the children".
All well and good, but I am starting to believe more and more that we should open up the internet, and instead of blocking material from pupils, teach them how to react IF they were to come across it. After all, who is going to filter content once they leave school?
Maybe with more and more "respected" people and organisations starting to use these services LA's will begin to allow forward thinking schools to make their own minds up.

[Chris]

Gosh, we sit in some august company there. I wanted to get my comment in before Barack Obama and the Pope have their say ;-)

Ironically this problem continues in many workplaces, again often managed by IT policy, primarily it seems as a way to manage workplace behaviours rather than any explicit worries about bandwidth etc. So if your pupils are lucky when they get a job they will work for a company that has a good trustworthy relationship with their staff that allows much more open access and seeks productivity in new areas, than a reductive lock down approach. I think I know which type of company will succeed in the long term.

[Ollie Bray]

Thanks for your comments here guys its really frustrating when schools and LEA's block content that could be really useful for education. I think we really have got to the stage now where we need to be challenging policy makers to start taking a more open and forward thinking look at filtering systems and responsible use. Most importantly they need to start trusting the classroom teacher to use the resources in the best interest of the class / school.