What sites do you allow staff access but not students?

[mb2k01]

There's a fair chance that if you are in South England, that you will be in a similar sitation to me - i.e. on the SWGfL and using RM SafetyNet Plus.

Unfortunately, that means you have the same limitations I currently do - i.e. have filtering on for all, or turn portions of it off for all (no group filtering available etc!)

The school you described coming from will either have turned it off for all, been outside of that ISP or invested in third party software to allow internal customisation.

 

I will your thread up with too much more conversation so that people keep contributing to it(!), but if you want to PM me about anything (maybe find out what i've looked at so far, get an indication of prices etc) then feel free.

[featured_spectre]

I'm not HoD, but also above the role of a teacher- so a teacher with a responsibility if that makes sense. My background is technical before I did teacher training.

 

That should stand you in better stead with your ICT team. Have you gone to your line manager and explained that you feel the NM is useless? Are there other techs at the school who actually do some work?

 

My logic is that by removing some of the barriers to using ICT and actually making it a valuable tool in the classroom, staff will actually want to use it, rather then feeling that they are being told they have to use it so just using it to tick a box.

 

Ask the SLT to run a training session once a month after school. I did that and the staff use the whiteboards alot more! You would be surprised if you got them to use the whiteboard software, they will produce good lessons without the need to go to your ICT rooms!

 

This hopefully will then increase confidence in ICT and have other knocks ons e.g. people word processing their reports!!

 

Not identifying area too much but southern England.

 

I know how you feel about this! If it is any consolation, when I came to our school, the HOD and the technician were about as useful as a chocolate teapot. Since I have been here I turned the whole department around, and in our old ofstead report we got a "satisfactory" for ICT, in the most recent one we got an "excellent", which the SLT put pretty much at my door!

[FN-GM]

Students are pretty restricted, staff can go on pretty much anything

[synaesthesia]

It differs greatly between the schools here, the ISP involved (EMBC) does the filtering and that is set by the main contact at the school. Typically all webmail, youtube, social sites are blocked by default but you can access them by logging into the EMBC portal.

 

To go back a few posts about RM and incompetent local managers - I will agree that things should be investigated thoroughly before raising tickets (as previously mentioned) but one thing you get with RM that you won't with many other solutions is a *huge* support base and a lot of different people you can go to for help. Considering just how easy making changes to networks is on RM systems (i.e. CC3/4) I would question that managers abilities a bit further, especially considering the comprehensive knowledgebase on offer there.

 

Personally though, going back to the filtering, I've been asked a couple of times to allow youtube "across the board" - something I've had to refuse to do on a "duty of care" basis but have been easily able to allow/block sites locally between different user levels via CC3/4/AD.

[ArchersIT]

At the county level there are filters in place for the different age groups and for staff. However, we point all staff at the student one for the same reason that others discuss, which is that it makes it easier for staff to know which sites students will be able to access when they provide links etc.

 

The only exception to this is youtube, which similar to others, has been opened up to staff to allow access to "educational" clips on it but is still blocked for students.

 

Cheers

 

Jonathan

[mortstar]

Policy here is staff & students have the same access (or not) to our filter's 'content groups' so that if a teacher directs a class to a link, they know it is going to work. Preparation is the key, as long as they have checked the link works before the lesson, any problem sites can be amended beforehand. If, however, a request comes in mid-lesson that is "affecting my teaching" then the teacher only has themselves to blame.

 

Staff are allowed access to some relevant sites that students are not, youtube...streaming music...bbc iplayer etc. No access to webmail accounts is allowed for any users of the network. All correspondence coming from the site must be traceable.

 

The SLG and I can see no case for the use of social networking sites at this time. The amount of time wasted on them outweighs 100x any benefits they bring. The functions they provide (collaborative working etc.) are recreated with a properly functioning VLE.

 

EDIT On a related but OT note: During internet safety week an ICT teacher here did a presentation to staff around internet safety policy. It was found that many staff have accepted their students as friends/contacts on websites such as facebook. After discussions between staff, SLG have asked all of these contacts to be removed and any future requests declined due to the issues that could possibly arise.

Edited March 9, 2009 by mortstar

[pete]

On the admin network, (offices, staff rooms, issued laptops) staff have access to a different proxy which is more relaxed.

 

On the curriculum network, (IT rooms, classrooms, laptop trolleys) staff have the same restrictions as the kids.

 

We used to have different filtering levels between staff and student accounts on the curriculum network but a combination of crap passwords, not reporting compromised passwords and poor class control by a minority spoiled that for everyone.

[SpuffMonkey]

 

We used to have different filtering levels between staff and student accounts on the curriculum network but a combination of crap passwords, not reporting compromised passwords and poor class control by a minority spoiled that for everyone.

 

Ditto - we used to be fairly relaxed on the teacher side - but it just lead to abuse by the teachers - letting kids log in on their accounts "so they can can get on with work" oh yeah! In lieu of proper management control of the staff - had to take technological steps to deal with this - so the responsible staff have to suffer along with the rest.

[webman]

Sorry to say your NM sounds incompetant if he puts both teachers and staff on the same filter.

 

I presume you mean students and staff.

 

But 14 of us EduGeekers have chosen the 'No' option. Are all of us incompetent too?

[bossman]

@b_m:

It would be a real incentive for all network managers if teaching staff at all levels could be trusted to use these resource's carefully and with respect but I am afraid that will never be the case.

Too many of the professional teaching staff think that by gaining access to all manner of video delights as seems the case that it will enhance the teaching and learning environment.

Last minute planning and panic when teaching staff find a resource at home only to find it is filtered by the LA, this not only frustrates them but they in turn take it out on the only person they feel can help them by abusing them on a professional IT forum or trying to put them down in front of others.

This is not very professional I feel.

I cannot help but feel you are only looking to your own ends and pushing your opinions in the guise of asking for ours so as to take the emphasise off the senior leadership team in your school who as you have said just throw money at the problem in a bid to rid them of a situation they do not know how to deal with.

I do empathise with you also on the point of wanting to push IT forward in your school but at what cost to others as has already been said on this forum, collaboration seems to be missing between yourself and the NM so as others have said meet with him, talk to him and most of all listen to what he has to say before you doubt his competency, if he was talking in a manner to which he was putting you down I feel you would have something to say on the matter.

Lastly look at why the teachers want access to these sort of resources i.e. youtube, facebook, myspace, bebo etc and you will find the same answer.

Could you replicate these internally at your school thus taking away the risk (think about it) more than one way to skin a cat!

I have not made these comments to upset anyone but to try and bring together IT and staff in their thinking. :-)

[mb2k01]

I presume you mean students and staff.

But 14 of us EduGeekers have chosen the 'No' option. Are all of us incompetent too?

 

I completely agree Webman.

Nephilim, I'm sorry but arrogance (I’ve read all of yours posts in this thread) isn't the most suitable course of action when approaching this (or any other) issue.

 

If you have read my previous posts you will see that a lot of Network Managers don't have the option to customise filtering to this degree. It is not incompetence at all, it is a lack of resources available to them. Those who do have the

 

In life if you ask someone in a more informed position than you a question, and you get an answer (albeit one you don't like), you should generally believe that to be the truth and choose to explore alternatives if you are still not happy, not simply tell them they’re wrong.

 

Undermining someone else’s position is completely unprofessional and shows a certain level of incompetence itself.

[pete]

@Original Poster

Free pointers regarding the 50MB storage space allocated to the kids:

 

How much redundant (i.e can tolerate a disk failure) storage space does the school have available for students?

How long are backups of the above retained?

How much storage (disk/tape) space does that take up?

How much space do all the other backups take? How long are they kept for?

 

My major storage cost here isn't the actual diskspace - disks are cheap, it's ensuring that I have sufficiently granular backups for restoring data at a point in time. If I add a terabyte of storage, I need daily incrementals of that storage and at least 4 fridays of full backups.

 

Work with your network manager to discover:

 

1) How much it would cost to (say) quadruple the kids storage space.

2) How much it would cost to back that up.

3) How much is in the ICT development budget this year.

4) Whether you can afford to do anything about the 50MB quota.

 

As a data point, a full backup here is 2TB. That gets expensive to back up _really_ quickly.

[enjay]

Sorry to say your NM sounds incompetant if he puts both teachers and staff on the same filter. They should have seperate filters as we have in my school.

 

As others have said, this response is both arrogant and offensive. To brand anyone who does something differently to you as incompetent is outrageously narrow-minded.

 

For example, we have the same filtering here for staff and students, not because I am incompetent but because, in the light of other demands on my budget, I cannot justify the £300 a year for the modular solution. To buy in to that at the expense of other, more pressing needs (perhaps ones which don't have such easy bypasses) would, in my view, be irresponsible and therefore more incompetent.

[b_m]

Can I just thank everyone for their responses so far. I am sorry to see that it has caused arguments although glad to see that it is a hot topic!

 

I will investigate the issues that have been raised by some people wherever possible.

 

I would just say though, and I know I will get flamed for this, that a lot of the posts do seem to have been made during "work time". I don't have a problem with this, but it could be seen as social networking, and whats good enough for the techies is good enough for the teachers.....

 

Thanks for all the time people have put into this thread.

 

B_M

[featured_spectre]

Webman, mbraham, nickjones I accept your points. As I said above, I did not mean to brand you or anyone else as incompetant, however having no filtering is incompetance (that is what I meant although I do agree I could have phrased it better. I am just a blunt person. I did mean teachers and staff, as they have different requirements. I do not mean that you are incompetant (those who put no), most of you help me with problems which I am thankful for. Teaching staff do require basic filtering (porn, gambling etc), whereas staff such as ancillery staff / admin staff etc have no need for sites like youtube, teachertube etc.

 

Students obviously should go on there own filter but if the facilities are not there then I understand that. I am not saying that due to budget/facility constraints you are doing poor jobs, far from it, most of my network is running from second hand machines so I know how it is.

 

Lastly, apologies for offending anyone.

[webman]

Thanks for your post nephilim.

[maniac]

Our staff filtering is very relaxed. The only categories that are filtered for staff are Adult websites, Gambling, on-line games, proxy websites and instant messaging. There are several categories which have a warning which staff have to click before they can view the sites in that category, but most other things are available.

 

However this is up for review soon, as facebook keeps appearing as a top 10 website for the whole school, which does beg questions as to exactly how many teachers are using it when they should be teaching.

 

Mike.

[enjay]

Thanks Nephilim.

[enjay]

I would just say though, and I know I will get flamed for this, that a lot of the posts do seem to have been made during "work time". I don't have a problem with this, but it could be seen as social networking, and whats good enough for the techies is good enough for the teachers.....

 

Not a flaming response here, but a regular one :-) I do access this site (and other similar ones) during work time, and based on the number of problems I've fixed via them, and the problems we've not encountered because knowledge gained on here allowed me to avoid a bad buy, I'm sure the school doesn't mind. Part of my job is to stay up-to-date on technologies, problems, policies, best practice, etc and this site offers that. Also, I wouldn't class EduGeek as a social network site a la Facebook etc, as we're talking "shop", not cars, TV shows, etc.

[jamesb]

I would just say though, and I know I will get flamed for this, that a lot of the posts do seem to have been made during "work time". I don't have a problem with this, but it could be seen as social networking, and whats good enough for the techies is good enough for the teachers.....

 

Show me a facebook group which gives advice on, say as an example, teaching resources.

 

A place like edugeek is much more comparable to something like linkedin than facebook. A technical resource and professional networking site, rather than one for social networking.

[Davit2005]

Hi all,

 

My question is, do you allow staff different internet viewing permissions to students- and if so what can staff view that students can't? Please could you answer the poll and post details in the thread?

 

 

The school could be limited by an LEA provided service that may not authenticate with network users making filtering based on AD Groups allmost impossible. We had this at last school untill we purchased our own filtering system and were able to drop the filtering level for all and control access to websites on a AD user/group basis.

[sonofsanta]

The school could be limited by an LEA provided service that may not authenticate with network users making filtering based on AD Groups allmost impossible. We had this at last school untill we purchased our own filtering system and were able to drop the filtering level for all and control access to websites on a AD user/group basis.

 

I refer you to @Dos_Box's earlier post today.

[Sheridan]

We generally have very similar access for staff and students, with a couple of minor exceptions like Youtube for staff only. Students get a few more restrictions based on flash games sites but thats generally because of teachers requests!

 

One thing that does bug me is that staff will find a 'new' site by googling it at home the night before, and then find out its blocked for some reason in school (i.e blogging site or similar) and then complain as its the main focus of their lesson - talk about planning ahead!

 

We also have an unfiltered system as well - but thats only in use by servers collecting updates etc as it requires no authentication.

[Gibson335]

Hmm. Lost some sympathy for this poster when they both had a go at their NM not being up to date and then chipping in with the comment about being on here during the day. It's what the site is for - it helps keep you current.

 

And, not defending this specific NM at all, but you can get de-skilled very quickly in that role if you don't spend a LOT of your OWN time researching and testing things out, and if your SLT don't provide necessary training. Perhaps in addition to being de-skilled they have become disenchanted.

 

There are usually two sides to any story.

[Quackers]

Our filtering gives us over 100 categorys, so we can fine tune needs quite well.

 

On the teacher stations where a projector is connected we have the same rules as students with the exception of youtube for the teachers own protection from displaying something risky on a screen. On a teachers laptop we only have Porn, abuse & Malicious websites turned on, so they have a lot more lax filtering so they use them for facebook.