Network Blocking ARGH!

so, i've been so darn angry the last two weeks that i haven't bothered to write about it, hoping the situation would resolve itself. well, it's not going to resolve itself, and i just have to vent before making an appointment to speak with the headmaster.

last year i attended Ulearn08 with our headmaster and some other folks from my school. the net result was that this year we were going to have open internet access, among other cool stuff. well...

i came to school after our (too short) summer holiday and plugged in the network, used google chrome for various things, then went home. when i plugged my computer into my own modem, i couldn't load chrome, as "your network administrator has blocked your access to proxies. see him" (that's a paraphrase) came up. thinking it must be the browser i used, i tried internet explorer, only to find that the connections tab was missing altogether! i rang our NA at home, and he, wisely, neither answered nor returned my call. i was absolutely livid.

the next day i went straight to him, and was told that it was "possible" for a student with a laptop to access our proxy and use up our internet time. he added, "the ministry provides laptops for work, at work". he then tempered that with the info that he had only changed the proxy access on IE, and that chrome "must be borrowing the settings from IE, tell it to change them properly; then, d/l firefox, which should work fine for you at home".

so, downloaded firefox, which does work fine at home, BUT...

EVERYTHING is blocked! first, we couldn't access any video sites, then radio sites, now sites on metaphors, and today i couldn't even open my payslip in google docs! it's gotten so ridiculous i would be speechless if i just weren't so angry!

>>Site blocked. www.nbc.com is not allowed on this network.
>>This site was categorized as:
>>Television
>>Questions? Not properly categorized?

look, i get that school doesn't want staff hanging around on tradme, but come on! half of the english curriculum in nz is media studies! without access to media, how am i to teach my classes? and not using my laptop at home? where do they think i actually do MY work, after teaching all day?

and the idea that a student will use up all our allowance? c'mon! i've only ever seen 1 student here with a laptop, and he was a top boy! seriously, what is the percentage?

oh, and then to add insult to injury, on thursday all staff received an article in our inboxes, from the _principals' digests_, entitled "using the potential of facebook, youtube, and myspace" (none of which we can access, of course)! it carried the reports of a study, which i'm sure you've seen by now, with a vision of student today, and recommended: consideration of social networking sites for staff as well as classrooms, harnessing the educational value of chat rooms, instant messaging, blogs, and wikis, "ensur[ing] equitable access", and so on. was that supposed to be a joke? were they kidding? are they laughing in their offices about how frustrated we are?

the new nz curriculum calls for teaching students how to live in their future, utilising technology students use in their everyday lives. how can we do that if we, the teachers, do not have access? while i had planned a variety of exciting units for this year, at all different levels, i am seriously thinking of bagging all of them and simply using "chalk and talk". running into gigantic problems every time i want to do something new and relevant is becoming too big an obstacle. i am very close to giving up.

ARGH!

it seems like this technology business has more barriers than doorways.  with a barrier in front of each idea, it's no wonder teachers are slow to catch the technology train.  it's simply so much easier to keep doing what you've been doing instead.

i'm still in the process of having the year 9's research their topics to create newsmaker reports.  one of the technology problems is that our students are only allowed access to the internet via an internet log in (same for all).  any info they want to save needs to be put into a file, saved to that drive which is cleared every day (and different depending on which lab they are in), then they must log off, log in as themselves, and drag the file to their documents folder.  from there they can do what they wish - print or whathaveyou.  it's very time-consuming and aggravating!

problems with computers:  firstly, i don't have access to a lab during this class time.  prior to today, we have spent 3 days trying to do internet research (this is after print research, which we have already completed).  the first day the art projects were on display in the library in the computer section, which i booked over a term ago, and we could not access them.  the second day in the library computer section, none of the listed passwords would work.  the third day i got the mobile laptops instead, and the last person to use them hadn't plugged them in, so they were dead. ::pulling hair out::  three lessons down the gurgler and no research completed!

additionally, in all my wisdom (haha), i had decided that students could find the video of their choice (the group has a 20 second max video choice they can include in their news report), edit it in moviemaker as homework, and then email it, and any photos they wish to use, to their group leader, who would do the collating and make final decisions.  well, they can't access email on the school computers due to java, which is blocked on student log ins.  that means boys who live in the hostel have no email available to them at all.   ::sigh::  so for any, or what little video/photos we will have, i must handle the organisation of them all myself - what's the point of that exactly? to use up what little time i have on trivial matters rather than on the teaching of bigger issues, such as critiquing reputable sites?

my goodness, i could go on, but i think you get the point.  for every action, there is a (negative) reaction that results in very little being done, except for the creation of a very large headache.

so my questions today are:  how does your school handle internet access?  do all students have full access that they are responsible for, and a solid disciplinary measure for the few who are naughty?  do your students have java and full functioning programmes?  have you ever had a problem where a site has corrupted, via java, your network?  these are some of the questions i'd like some feedback on before going in to discuss this with my school group.  did you have to fight the good fight to get to where you are today (tech-wise), or was your school on board from the get-go?

thanks so much for any feedback!  i'm going to go outside, enjoy the sunshine for half an hour, and relax!