Okay, I’m 16, right? So I still go to High School. I’m in year eleven. Average teenager, blah blah blah. But I also happen to have a website/blog. A proper one. Not some something.blogger.com or something.wordpress.com thing. I have a proper domain name, with proper hosting that i paid for myself, not a free account on blogger where i whine about my middle-class life in the suburbs.
So anyway, as i was saying, i go to school in NSW. As some of you might know, the NSW government has introduced a state-wide proxy for all schools called the “DETPortal” (Department of Education and Training Portal) that blocks anything it deems “unappropriate’. Such as you.travel (a travel guide), any google search with the term “mp3″, most forums and even blogs. Even all the pictures on wikipedia are blocked. Maybe some little kid was looking up mammary glands?
This makes it awfully hard to complete any internet research tasks at school. For example, last year we were told to look up images of different products (clothes, for example) online and then make our own designs. Now, you’d think the first thing you’d do is go to google images, and search for, say, “shoe” or “shirt”. WRONG! Google Images? Blocked. Okay well…then maybe go to an online shoe shop? or shirt shop? WRONG! 99% of online shops are blocked, and the chances of that 1% that isn’t blocked having high-quality pictures of what you’re looking for are even smaller.
Now, I guess you’re getting an understanding of how hard it is to work within the boundaries of this “DETPortal”, so this brings me to today. I went to go to my website (www.darcyjohnperkins.com). It was blocked! Rediculous. Why would they block me? I don’t have anything inappropriate on here. Skip 5 minutes later - I’m now in computers class, and i go to my website to see if it works. Still blocked. How about if i google my name, and then click the link to my site? What’s this? It works. Magic! Right now I’m in class, writing this up whilst my teacher tries to access a page he needed to teach us - which just happens to be blocked by the DETPortal…
This post/rant really is meaningless, but I just enjoyed getting it off my chest about how truly ridiculous this DETPortal is. I can’t wait until they realise it’s negative effects on our learning and just remove it.