What ‘s banned in your neighborhood?
Banned Websites Awareness Week brings
chance to examine extent of Internet filtering

According to a new report from the American Library Association, Internet-filtering software blocks more content than required and deprives students of access to information and collaborative tools

Titled Fencing Out Knowledge: Impacts of the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA) 10 Years Later, the report also argues those children most affected are the poor, who might not otherwise have unfiltered Internet Access if they cannot access it at school.

JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Committee would like to see how journalism programs currently fare in today’s filtered high schools.

We urge you to complete the linked  survey to see what your schools filters block, either for your students or for other classes in your school.

Students surfing the Web themselves or interviewing others who do can provide students with a worthwhile experience in news literacy as they become informed about information availability and how that affects society’s knowledge and ability to act on that knowledge.

We hope this survey will gather enough representative information to allow JEA and others to design strategies to help journalism programs work in a less filtered environment.

This lesson plan by Lori Keekley can add structure to your searching.

Survey instructions:

1. Click here to go to the survey.
2. Each student or adviser should complete a separate form.
3. Each form allows the student or adviser to identify multiple blocked sites
4. Submit the results of your surveys from Sept. 24 to Oct. 3
5. Submit all forms by Oct. 3
6. If you gathered any of your information using audio or video or have any visual reporting, please feel free to share that with us here
7. Use links on the accompanying graphic to access Internet filtering
8. JEA’s Scholastic Press Rights Committee will post information about the results in the near future
9. Publish results of your own surveys to show the local impact of filtering and share with us
10. If you have questions or run into problems, contact us here