On November 18, 2012 I put in an Internet filtering request to the School District tech people for a math games website devoted to Common Core Standards practicing. Apparently it was blocked because it has the word "games" in the website and title of the page. While I understand the limitation on online games in general, I would have hoped there would be a few teachers looking over the lists of websites being banned in order to provide input.
I wanted this unblocked for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the Keystone math test are being administered to the 10th and 11th grade students in January and I wanted to give them time to study for it.
In follow-up to my request, I received the following in an email on December 14, 2012:
I wanted this unblocked for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that the Keystone math test are being administered to the 10th and 11th grade students in January and I wanted to give them time to study for it.
In follow-up to my request, I received the following in an email on December 14, 2012:
The Internet Filtering Exception Request indicated above has been reviewed by your Principal as well as by the Instructional Technology Filtering Committee. Your request has been APPROVED.
Changes to the District's filtering system should occur within 10 days of the start of the month following the month in which the request was received for review.
If I am reading this correctly, then the Common Core gaming website I want unblocked in preparation for the administration of the Keystone on January 9-11 will only be available in January, even though I put the request in on November 18. To me, this is unacceptable. As a teacher trying to keep up on the most recent use of technology to encourage learning and growth, I need all the tools at my disposal as quickly as possible. If it will take 1.5 months for every website to be unblocked, why should I even bother trying?
Recently, another website, billed as the Pinterest for education, Learn.ist has been growing quite quickly, yet remains blocked on the SDP network. One very easy solution to this would be to include teachers in the group responsible for vetting these sites - it might take some heat off the tech support staff and provide rationale for why certain sites are blocked or not.
Recently, another website, billed as the Pinterest for education, Learn.ist has been growing quite quickly, yet remains blocked on the SDP network. One very easy solution to this would be to include teachers in the group responsible for vetting these sites - it might take some heat off the tech support staff and provide rationale for why certain sites are blocked or not.
RSS Feed
