Just when you thought iPods and mobile phones were the only thing being banned by schools, Proctor High School of Rutland, Vermont has become the first school in the United States to ban blogging from school computers.
The Rutland Herald reports Principal Chris Sousa said the decision to block the site from school was made because blogging is not an educational use of school computers.
But not content in banning blogging from the confines of the classroom, he’s also jumped on the “blogs are bad” bandwagon in a country where drug use, teenage pregnancy and guns are rife yet seemingly insignificant compared to the new evil that are blogs. He is also urging parents to monitor student blog usage in the home, at friends places, and anywhere else this terrible plague on society may raise its ugly head.
Sousa said he found the prospect of students putting information on blog that would be available to predators was seriously concerning.
“As soon as someone has a name and a general geographic location, it can take an Internet predator 20 minutes to find their address and directions to their house,” Sousa said. “Any time a teen puts their own photo or biographical information on a Web site, it’s something that parents at least need to know about.”
The Blog Herald’s editor can be found in Eaton, Western Australia, for all those predators currently reading this site, although we’d suggest that it may take a little longer than 20 minutes to get here from Vermont.
