Senior Kelly Brucks, who is an artist for The Rock, said Tumblr is a blogging platform that allows access to creative ideas and spreading them. He said the site is a great reference for artists.
“When I needed ideas for not just newspaper art, but art in general, [Tumblr is] the first thing I go to. … I can bounce ideas off of different posts on blogs that I find,” said Brucks, who also is taking Advanced Placement Art II. “There’s a bunch of different blogs; they re-blog off of each other, so it’s a cooperative effort to create this all-inclusive site.”
Tumblr users create blogs where they can choose which other blogs to follow, Brucks said, combining several ideas into a culmination of “one conclusive thing.” Here artists of all kinds can find references for design, illustration, photography, art, news and all types of writing.
“It is for my students to have access to good design when they are creating newspaper pages and yearbook pages. Tumblr’s a kind of website that offers unique ideas, and by not having access to those ideas, it can limit the imagination students need when they create their pages,” Stover said. “So after Kelly told me Tumblr no longer existed, I thought it was important that it be unblocked.”
The Children’s Internet Protection Act requires CPS block websites relating to pornography, hate-groups, cults, criminal-skills and gambling. According to its written policy, the “district’s technology exists for the purposes of maximizing the educational opportunities and the achievement of district students.”
CPS also blocks gaming and streaming music or videos because they do not meet the educational opportunities and use up a lot of bandwidth.
“The Internet changes on an up-to-the-minute basis.  Where students go and what they visit changes so rapidly that it can be difficult to keep up,” digital media teacher Patrick Sasser said in an email. “When many students are hitting a time wasting website throughout the district it can use a large percentage of CPS’s Internet bandwidth which slows down things for everyone.”
YouTube is no longer blocked at school, and there have been benefits as well as consequences. Sasser and social studies teacher Dan Ware see the benefits of YouTube as an educational site. Though some students may not use YouTube for academic purposes, Ware said trusting them is consistent with how RBHS has interacted with students since its inception.
“I saw of course there were potential dangers of students accessing inappropriate video for the school environment,” Ware said. “Since it’s been open to teachers, my teaching has dramatically change. Since it’s been open to students, the research they can do … has been greatly enhanced in the amount and quality of video.”
Tumblr, a blogging site, also may distract students. Along with inspiring design and creativity, Tumblr is a social networking site and students may use it as such.
“Tumblr has some good design things that can inspire students in my Graphic Design class.  Students can use Tumblr to look at what is good design and see examples of things that they might want to mimic or use in their own designs,” Sasser said. “Like any site out there, Tumblr can be a huge time waster as well, though. Students will often spend hours just surfing tumblr and looking at people’s blogs and doing social networking instead of using this site as a resource.”
By Avantika Khatri