By: Jordan Hansen, [Co-Editor of Vox]
Unless you haven’t been on one of the school computers this year, you may have noticed some major changes to the Internet. Some for the good, and some seem to be fairly annoying.
First off, to the pleasure of many students, both Twitter and Pandora have both been unblocked. FaceBook however, remains locked. Also, Google Images has been replaced by something called, “iBoss Clean Image Search.” And lastly, searching the word, “Gay” brings up a “Page blocked” screen, which is a violation of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution. Supposedly, the district is looking for a way to unblock the word while still “protecting” us.
Out of all the changes, the removal of Google Images being removed is the most puzzling. The clean image search is difficult to use, with very limited results. Six images per page is fairly annoying, especially when trying to quickly find an image for a project. Understandably, our school is trying to protect us from the -terribly- evil Internet, but this seems a little over the top. If the school can’t block inappropriate images from Google, then there is a problem with the school. All the district is doing is making it more difficult for us to finish our projects. It’s not effective, and should be removed.
The sites unblocked are useful, but it’s not worth it to have Google Images blocked. Our school needs to understand that while a few students may attempt to look up certain things, the vast majority only uses these tools for an advantage in the classroom.
