webaccess

The following sites are no longer accessible...http://nswlearnscope.wikispaces.com/http://blogger.com/These sites are an integral part of our current LearnScope project. They should also be available for professional use by staff.
 * 2 November - Hunter Institute**

The sites listed in the email below (above) are still blocked. Could you please attend to this as a matter of urgency as it is impacting work practices as well as participation in professional development activities.
 * 7 November - Hunter Institute**

We had no trouble accessing these sites prior to November 1.Since November 1 the Hunter Institute has been gradually implementing a policy of authenticated Internet access for staff, in preparation for a full roll out to students in 2007. I would imagine that this is being done in a coordinated manner across the state.Last Thursday I received reports that Glendale and Belmont campus were affected, but these were the only campuses using authenticated Internet access at that stage. I made the assumption that other campuses would also be affected, so I sent the request to IT Help Services to have the sites unblocked state-wide (see initial email at the bottom of this thread).It seems like we're moving away from local proxies to a more centralised approach. I don't have a problem with this per say, but it will definitely be an impediment to normal business operations if it takes more than 48 hours to get sites required for professional development or educational use unblocked.
 * 7 November - Hunter Institute**

I’m sitting in an Institute staff office and can’t access any of these sites!!
 * 8 November - Riverina**

OK, so now I'm getting Internet Sheriff on everything, even CNN - is this just some kind of Network problem? Are we sure it's a blocking issue?
 * 8 November - Riverina**


 * 8 November - from NSW LearnScope to IT Help**

As of today all the sites we use to do our work, connect with each other, trial with students, engage with nationally were blocked It would appear that some tools/sites are being tested and one minute are blocked, the next unblocked so you may in fact be dealing with this already To assist you and to minimize the level of traffic you get in the way of requests and complaints please note the following primary sites/tools Others will have to come via individual teachers. Skype www.wikispaces.com – this is used to create wikis eg. http://nswlearnscope.wikispaces.com Blogger blogs – [|www.blogger.com] – blogs will have anything ending with xxxxx.blogspot.com [|www.flickr.com] [|www.podomatic.com] – podcast site – individual sites will end with xxxxxxxx.podomatic.com eg. [|http://nswlearnscope.podomatic.com] Even our national site [|http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au] seemed to be blocked! Thank you for dealing with this quickly.IN the mean time our work is being affected.

The new DET authenticated internet access policy is causing a few problems for those of us in TAFE. You may already know this, but it is currently not possible to separate schools (K-12) from TAFE when filtering and unblocking internet sites. This means that the filtering group at ITD will not unblock sites like blogger.com until new filters are available that allow TAFE to be separated from schools. Apparently this will soon be possible, but no definite timeframe could be given…
 * 9 November - Hunter**

For your info, I've recently discovered that while [|http://blogger.com] is blocked, [|http://www.blogger.com] is **not** blocked.
 * 9 November - Hunter**

This might be useful information for other LearnScope groups in TAFE wanting to access this site.


 * 9 NOvember - to Robyn Jay**

Thank you for requesting that a number of URLs be unblocked for TAFE on the UNISYs feed. Following examination by the web filtering team it has been recommended that the following sites be unblocked http://nswlearnscope.podomatic.com/ - http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/flx/go - http://www.podomatic.com/ - http://www.nswlearnscope.com/ - http://www.skype.com/ - http://www.flexiblelearning.net.au/flx/go and these remain blocked because of high risk child protection issues for K-12 students [|www.blogger.com] - [|www.flickr.com] - www.wikispaces.com It is anticipated that a new UNISYS filter will soon be available that will allow a partition between TAFE and school students. I have placed the sites currently blocked for TAFE on a priority list to be unblocked once the new filter is available. I am unable to provide a timetable for when this will occur. Action has been initiated to undertake this recommendation. It is anticipated that this action may take up to 12 hours to activate. I believe David Cater-Cameron has disussed the current limitations of the UNISYS filter with you. Thank you for advising us about this site. Brian Powyer Manager Filtering Group

I've collated some points here a result of feedback from Robyn Jay and Vicki Marchant - also some of the NSW LearnScope teams located in a number of Institutes.
 * 10 November - Alex Hayes to ITD**

Feedback from Robyn Jay, Manager, NSW LearnScope 1. The social software sites blocked are the tools of trade for the NSW LearnScope management team, the teams of teachers across the state that we support and many other TAFE projects and teachers including Vicki Marchant’s ToL2 project. Without full access to these tools we are simply unable to do our work. While you have unblocked our two primary blog and wiki sites http://nswlearnscope.wikispaces.com  and http://www.nswlearnscope.com  your filtering will knock out the major communication imbedded scripts which serve to inform readers of this site. You will notice if you look at our blog site feed in the side bar, that all our project teams make use of (primarily) wikispaces wikis and blogger blogs. These are the result of substantial time and effort on the part of those teams and form the basis of their professional development and teaching work. 2. We struggle to see how Blogger, Flickr and Wikispaces are " high risk child protection issues for K-12 students ". These three online tools have been the core of our work through 2006. They are used safely and productively by educators across this state, nationally and internationally. Wikispaces in fact offers ad-free spaces to K-12 teachers and hundreds of such spaces exist internationally. Alternative spellings to many sites will lead to porn and other unacceptable sites for 5 year olds but please block THOSE sites rather than ours. 3. In our e-learning work we explicitly focus on the literacy skills required to live safely in our contemporary online world. The solution lies with professional teachers to carefully and mindfully select appropriate sites and to educate learners in their safe use. Please note that most of our students are 18+ and should not be affected by these restrictions. 4. If these problems were anticipated (gleaned from your statement It is anticipated that a new UNISYS filter will soon be available that will allow a partition between TAFE and school students. ) it could well be asked why this roll out was not postponed until that time, and why there was no apparent consultation re its impact beforehand. You appear not to be able to state a date when this new filter will be in place. I am concerned about the impact to teachers work in the meantime. It is a busy time of year and in the LearnScope project teachers are currently completing their final reports USING THESE TOOLS. Finally I would like to point you to a range of sites (amongst hundreds) currently used in TAFE using these tools that are regarded as national models in contemporary VTE e-learning pedagogy

www.blogger.com http://ourclass2006.blogspot.com/ http://ballinagetskilled2006.wikispaces.com/ http://metaledblog.blogspot.com/ http://nswtoxwomen.blogspot.com/ http://randtafe.wikispaces.com/ http://tlnw.blogspot.com/
 * Please note that it is IMPOSSIBLE to post to a blogger blog (with a blogspot address) without logging in at

and also to inform further: http://blog.wikispaces.com/2006/09/100000-wikis-in-classroom.html http://theopenclassroom.blogspot.com/ http://flickr.com/search/?w=all&q=TAFE&m=text

Feedback from Alex Hayes, A/Project Officer, NSW LearnScope
 * Google, Blogger, Wikispaces, Flickr, YouTube and Blip.TV not accessible for 2.5 hrs on 9th November 2006
 * Reports from Illawarra Institute of no access to the above sites on 9th November 2006


 * 14 November - IT to Robyn Jay**

Dear Robyn, Apologies for the unfortunate blocking of your education/research tools being used for the NSW LearnScope projects. I have requested my AIBE (authenticated Internet browsing & email) Implementation coordinators at the pilot TAFE campuses to organise for the following categories of sites to be unblocked: www.blogger.com [|www.flickr.com] [|www.skype.com] [|www.nswlearnscope.com] bliptv.com Note that the following were unblocked by ITD last week: nswlearnscope.wikispaces.com nswlearnscope.podomatic.com [|www.flexiblelearning.net.au] Please be aware that the wildcard categories are unlikely to be unblocked for users if they are school teachers wishing to access the tools whilst at their school. This is due to an existing policy that restricts access to public tools such as blogs and wikis. I cannot promise that the sites will remain unblocked as each Institute will be making its own decisions on what is available but I doubt these would be blocked when AIBE is implemented next year.
 * .wikispaces.com
 * .blogspot.com
 * .podomatic.com


 * 15 November - Illawarra (cc on email to ITHElp)**
 * Commonly used quality educational tools like http://wikispaces.com are currently blocked. Can you please inform on what’s happening with the firewall, as a matter of importance. Can you please inform on the procedures to advise staff members? In particular can [|http://wikispaces.com] be unblocked?****
 * I have irate teachers and students phoning up and asking why there are unable to access educational content for their classes.****

This morning I tried to complete the exit survey and realized the site (http://learnscope.newlearningmedia.com/surveys/entry.asp) to be ****BLOCKED**** by ITD. I am so disappointed that several popular web 2.0 websites were blocked. It affects those teachers who have been using those wonderful tools for their students.
 * 14 November - Sydney Institute**

14 November - Hi Alex, this is a collection of links and comments from this afternoons web cert IV class. They are particularly upset because they are in the middle of being assessed. __URLs affected by the block__: [|http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net] http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/distanceEd http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/acrm http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/evolveweb http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/sarahsweb http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/ninweb http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/blogfile http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/programmingweb http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phpchallenges/test.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phpchallenges/challenges.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phpchallenges/challenge3a.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phpchallenges/challenge6.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phpchallenges/challenge7.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phpchallenges/challenge8.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phpchallenges/challenge9.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phpchallenges/challenge9a.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phpchallenges/phpvalidation/challenge10.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phptutorials/tutorial1.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phptutorials/form.html http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phptutorials/form2.html http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phptutorials/tutorial4.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phptutorials/tutorial6.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/phptutorials/tutorial8.php http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/xml/sitemap.xml http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/xml/ninsitemap.xml http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/xml/challenge7.xml http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/xml/challenge8.xml http://brigitte.learningwebdesign.net/xml/challenge8a.xml http://www.flickr.com/photos/wras_sport/ [|www.staceys-site.com] - This above site is an odd one because there is another site which has almost identical content and this site is available. [|http://blognow.com.au]

In addition to this TAFE has promised to release a staff member to work on the Filtering Group to look at the TAFE needs for unblocking (and blocking) of sites along with a range of other filtering related tasks. I am dealing with Kevin Harris on this - he has already located one person however this person has returned to their normal position and a replacement is currently being sort.
 * 15 November - from ITD**

Hope these are the right email addresses...I actually only had an old WA address.... I saw the teams email - some of which is below and thought I'd give feedback. __Yesterday__ I could access and sign in to these sites below (except YouTube & Bloglines) + sites like protopage, yahoo on student machines in Syd Institute, Petersham (TAFE) - however I didn't have time to try uploading anything like images etc and didn't try accessing podcasts or mp3 files (where I fear the greatest difficulty is as we're stopped from downloading anything on student machines...sigh). I always have trouble when I request sound players like Real Player, only our nice IT guy has done this for me in our networked room - but not sure it's entirely allowable. I have had to get special permission (with a lot of trouble) for 4 staff machines to be used for online eg elluminate, discovere !! now supported on these 'allowable' machines - tho breeze is now of course supported... Sometimes Java interactive sites are troublesome and I constantly get Helpdesk help for this. However, I did hear positive words from IT manager re Skype but he (Steve Papadakis) said no webcams due to broadband restrictions. Hoping the new portal log-ins for everything in DET next year won't block access to our Web2 tools ion the future, free webmail etc...
 * 15 November - SIT**

The other issue with the survey is that anyone in NEW DET that has been cut over to the new browsing set up can't write to wikispaces. And some that aren't! In the testing I have done I can get to Flickr, upload to flickr (but the desktop loader will not work), I can see and right to blogger, but not upload images. Google BETA anything is barred. Just for starters. I was asked to the access as part of the Western Sydney Institute implementation with a view to findingwhat we can and can't get to, to find ways to get access to the sites we need (not my words but that of the manager that asked me to hammer it). Funnily, I came across a restricted DET site: reason was because it contained pornography (and I wished I had kept a screen shot of it).
 * 15 November - WSI**

sorry for late reply - been away for a few days.... i know this is too late for your reporting but I have returned to a disturbing message from one of my teachers re: students being suddenly unable to access their FlickR accounts through DET .... this is a huge concern (especially for assessment in final weeks of term!) have also always been unable to access YouTube
 * 15 November - North COast**