Much of the buzz on the edtech lists this week was generated by the release of a study conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, investigated the extend to which filtering software intended to prevent K-12 students from encountering pornography and other undesirable web content, also prevents access to medical information. Why is this an issue? Adolescents use the Internet to answer their personal questions about all kinds of things including health issues. They may seek information about condoms. AIDS, or drugs from the Internet when they are unwilling to ask their parents about such issues. The study seems to suggest that educational institutions use the most restrictive settings on the blocking software they purchase. If less restristive settings were used, much more health information would be available with only a slight increase in access to pornography.
