Welcome to the Good the Bad and the Ugly of the Internet

Recently I was reading a few of my favorite blogs when I came across a post on the blog site John Evans (http://nlcommunities.com/communities/joevans) titled RSS Information where John spoke about the newly create Image Wall on Bloglines.com and his concern over some of the content on this site. Fortunately Bloglines.com listened to the many concerned people who use this site and created a new domain name for the image wall (http://www.bloglinesimagewall.com/). John published another post titled A Bloglines Update which got the two of use talking. Our comment went something like this:

John said:
Thanks Shawn for the heads up on this. I hope this
implementation by Bloglines does what they claim it will do. I have yet to test
it on our school filters. What still concerns me is the fact that while it may
be blocked by school filters, the Image Wall is still accessible from
non-filtered computers such as their home computers. It brings to the forefront
our need to educate our students and their parents on the safe use of technology
in their daily lives.

Shawn said:
John, I think you hit on the most important part.
Filters serve a purpose but the most important thing we can and need to do
it educate our children and I am beginning to think their parents about the
internet. Sure, they know about the web but can they (students and
parents) discern factual information from exercises in creative writing?

I know most of us have enough items of our plates, but
what would a community service class for parents and students on internet tools
look like. Call it “The Good the Bad and the Ugly of the internet.
How to find the roses among the manure” content could include searching
strategies and techniques, Web 2.0 tool, Social Network site etc…

Random thoughts before I head off for work.

Shawn

John said:
Shawn, You have the beginnings of a great idea. Wonder
how we and others could collaborate on a session such as that? Perhaps put it on
a wiki or find something that someone has already done. I know Wes Fryer has
done many workshops with this theme included in them.

John

Later that day, a new Wiki was born. I would like to invite you to view and participate in “The Good the Bad and the Ugly of the Internet” Wiki.

This site is JUST coming out of the ground so we are looking for people to contribute to the space.

K-12,Shawn Wheeler, John Evans, Bloglines, Students, Web 2.0, Web 2, Filtering, On-line Safety