The Province of New Brunswick has banned the use of the popular social networking site Facebook during school hours. Beginning Monday, the ban applies to both students and staff alike on ALL computers owned by the Department of Education.
Valerie Kilfoil, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, stated the new policy was created in response to complaints from school districts, citing that frequent Facebook use was disruptive in classrooms.
“It all ties into the use of technology in the schools.” said Kilfoil, “It must always be linked to educational outcomes. As well, the department has always been vigilant about privacy and pupil-protection issues, so, because Facebook is a social network, it was determined that it did not fit into the ‘educational outcomes’, in terms of the use of technology,”.
The director of education for School District 2 in the Moncton area, Gregg Ingersoll, said the department has been monitoring the websites students visit and noticed of them signing onto their Facebook accounts during school hours. “It was substantive of the number of hits happening during the school day. So that’s what prompted the department to look into the possibility of blocking the site.”
Ingersoll said “the ban stretches from 7 AM to 3:30 PM”, Monday through Friday.
The ban does not apply to personal devices such as BlackBerrys and laptops.
Facebook has already been banned in nearly half of the departments inside the New Brunswick government with each individual department having the flexibility to make their own rules.
The Department of Business New Brunswick, Agriculture and Aquiculture, Fisheries, Health, Supplies and Services, as well as the Department of Natural Resources and the Department of Tourism have all clamped down on use of Facebook.
