VLE's/Internet access

[Lorfarius]

General question but just interested to see what people are generally using for their schools VLE's and how you incorporate internet usage into it. The secondary school I work for doesn't have one in place and the overall web filter is provided by the council, OpenHive. Since I started there hasn't really been a push to control internet access with students/teachers having pretty free access to the likes of Youtube (had to actually argue with the Headteacher to get Facebook blocked!) and even gaming sites. Youtube can't be all that common across schools for students to use can it?

 

I've heard some talk about VLE's where teachers are made to be more involved researching what sites they actually need the kids to use for lessons but not sure where to start. We do actually have Impero installed which allows classroom control with a much more active website filter. But I'm sure there's much better out there and looking for some ideas. What do you guys have in place and what sort of access to staff and students have to the internet?

[Mako]

Fronter is our VLE.

SmoothWall is our firewall and web filter.

AB Tutor is for classroom management.

Staff have unrestricted access to YouTube in the staff room.

Staff have redirected access to YouTube Education for all other rooms.

Sixth Form have slightly less restrictive web access, as they sometimes need to research more controversial topics that are usually blocked by default, such as abortion, religious debates, murder etc.

Just this morning we got word from the Headteacher to open up YouTube Education to students. All social media is otherwise blocked.

 

We use Fronter quite heavily, and we are a Fronter Champion School. All homework is put on there, along with the various resources needed. Fronter has built-in tools to embed things like YouTube videos in there, but if the video is blocked in school then it won't play. Makes it fine for students to look at it at home, though, like they should be doing.