I'll ask our technician Josh (see above) to check it out if he ever gets a moment. Welcome to Glenelg and to this blog Josh. It was a surprise to see your name pop up here. Your own blogs are truly refreshing and thought provoking. They are a wonderful example including the intrapersonal aspect of blogging. I've asked your permission and will add your http://nunnone.com/ to my 'SA Blogs' bloglines. Cheers, Al

"How do we help get Wikispaces unblocked in SA schools?" Adam Frey of Wikispaces [email in response to this post] My response to Adam (and James) below …

"It would be wonderful to get Wikispaces (and edublogs.org) made accessible to more students. Unfortunately it is an international problem that wont quickly go away.

The following post on nonscholae.org from Bill Kerr summarises it well.
http://nonscholae.org/the-school-administrators-dilemma

The answer has probably got something to do with reaching a critical mass of teachers and students using blogs and wikis and other web authoring/hosting tools. This possibly can only happen with a united front (not 'confront') that demonstrates the value/necessity of such tools through large scale and noticeably increasing use in the schools. For example, I'm seeking to introduce blogging within state education system initiatives. A major part of the appeal (and therefore acceptance) has to be that blogging is not going to intrude on teachers existing time, curricula and personal commitments. School leaders are integral to uptake of blogs and wikis. Governmental leaders need to be made aware of their promising policies re 21st Century Learning – but their voices(regarding filtered sites) will only be in response to what is happening around them. Who knows, they might even claim the unblocking of blogs and wikis as their own idea [and not those who have been fighting for it for so long] – and that's fine by me. Right now they are saying collaborative online learning is the 'methodology of now' but are running scared that they might be liable should something unforseen happen.

Not an answer to your question I know Adam but perhaps now you have some sort of context. There are ways and means – mine is to use what does work right now and try to quietly get it happening within the schools and education department initiatives.
Another way is to ensure that the issue is periodically being revisited.
It's a problem that continues to restrict and limit us."

Hopefully there will be some serious consideration given in SA to the model used in Victoria. Although filtering is an international problem, it seems education departments can unblock certain sites across the state.
Discussions continue and as eLearning and emerging technologies increasingly (unavoidably) play a part in DECS initiatives, our students will begin to have rightful access to those tools that best accomodate their learning - and I reckon it will happen this year.

I'd like to hear what and where blogs and wikis are not banned in Australia – especially
http://edublogs.org/ and http://www.wikispaces.com/