Follow these steps to disable a router-configured content filter:. If the content filter is applied through Google Safe Search, there are alternate steps to disabling it. Bear in mind, only administrators of the filter can access the settings, although access is possible if the settings are not locked.
The settings page is where you'll need to go to lock and change blocked pages. Once you lock the setting, it will then only be accessible by password. Safe Search settings are a little less robust than other filters. They generally block huge chunks of content at once, without specification. Schools have one of the most important roles in the lives of students. Schools must take action against:. The difficulty is that schools are often underfunded and spread thin.
Teachers are often untrained in many of these concerns. Plus, acting against them is the constantly changing technology, the ever-evolving social media, and the persistence of hackers, scammers, and predators who have more time and resources. To make it worse, kids are far more dependent on their phones than ever. The act provides E-rate program discounts to internet safety policies. To qualify, schools must include content filtering, monitoring, and education in digital citizenship. As mentioned, hackers target schools because of the personal data stored in databases.
Web filtering draws some criticism for censorship, but, the benefits of content filtering far outweigh the negatives. If it had not been for the CIPA requirements, I honestly don't think we would have installed a filter. Government with an opportunity to censor allow for prior restraint of online materials. There have been instances where sites were blocked for, in my view, less than legitimate reasons. For example, the Discovery Channel's School site has hosted a message board for some time, and I had been a regular contributor.
One day, I tried to access the message board, and found it blocked. I sent a request to N2H2 to unblock it, and they refused. Their view was that the message board wasn't moderated, therefore it was open to obscenity and pornography. I immediately replied that this was a legitimate site after all, it was a Discovery Channel site , but they refused to unblock it.
My local information systems department finally unblocked the site for me. Our district had paid a subscription fee to participate in the project, so of course I was concerned that our students couldn't access the pages. I still am not sure why N2H2 decided to block those pages In addition, it's been my experience that it blocks nearly any page created on a public Web server such as Geocities, Tripod, AOL, etc. I recognize that some pages on those sites might be objectionable, however, I believe the great majority are legitimate.
To simply block them because of their domain name seems to me to be a little heavy handed. The sites include those that might be politically sensitive for example, sites on the Holocaust. I've found Bess to be pretty restrictive in other instances as well. I once had students do projects on major league baseball in conjunction with a Turner Broadcasting electronic field trip we were participating in. When my students tried to access sites on Babe Ruth, they were blocked because of the word 'Babe'.
On the other hand, if they found sites for George Herman Ruth, they access the materials. To me, that's an unreasonable restriction on a legitimate research request. I don't really have much information on filtering software other than Bess, so I don't know how easy or difficult it would be for other teachers using other filtering software to override an 'objectionable' site.
N2H2 does allow for an appeal to have a site unblocked, but the procedure takes some time. N2H2 has to review the site before it can be unblocked and generally that cannot be done until the next day. That leads me to another issue regarding filtering software. As a classroom teacher, I must rely on either my local district administration or N2H2 to unblock sites. That is a process that may take some time to accomplish. No one in my building has the ability to immediately override a block.
In other words, no one has the password to access a site BESS has blocked. I'd like to go one step further, though. As a classroom teacher, it is my responsibility to keep kids on task, to make sure they aren't accessing those sites that might be objectionable. Isn't this the same as making sure, for example, that kids aren't reading comic books during history class? Why can't we do the same when we have kids work online by providing a reasonably crafted Acceptable Use Policy?
If I have a reasonable AUP, that should work as well as any filter to ensure that students know what is an acceptable site or an acceptable use of equipment -- and what is unacceptable -- and it should protect the teacher as well.
One AUP clause I heard of that I thought was really interesting was one that stated that if a teacher felt a student had gone to an unacceptable site, the teacher, student, and the student's parents would review the site together to determine whether the site violated the teacher's AUP.
I'd recommend a school administrator be present, also. The Web site immediately forwarded the e-mail to me, and I notified school officials. The student was suspended. The parents came to school for a conference, but we had an AUP with the student's and parents' signatures on it, and that carried enough weight to have the suspension stick. I consider myself fairly liberal, and if I ran an Internet filter, I'm sure there would be those who felt I let too much slip by -- and an equal number who felt I was too restrictive.
To me, any sort of outside filtering constitutes 'prior restraint. Search Search. Newsletter Sign Up. Search form Search. Filtering Software: The Educators Speak Out The Children's Internet Protection Act CIPA passed in , requires schools qualifying for federal E-rate funding to use filtering technology to block access to materials that are "obscene, child pornography, or harmful to minors.
Isn't this the same as making sure kids aren't reading comic books during history class? The Education World Tech Team includes more than 50 dedicated and knowledgeable educational-technology professionals who have volunteered to contribute to occasional articles that draw on their varied expertise and experience.
Trending Report Card Comments It's report card time and you face the prospect of writing constructive, insightful, and original comments on a couple dozen report cards or more. Here are positive report card comments for you to use and adapt! Struggling Students? You've reached the end of another grading period, and what could be more daunting than the task of composing insightful, original, and unique comments about every child in your class?
The following positive statements will help you tailor your comments to specific children and highlight their strengths. You can also use our statements to indicate a need for improvement. Turn the words around a bit, and you will transform each into a goal for a child to work toward. Sam cooperates consistently with others becomes Sam needs to cooperate more consistently with others, and Sally uses vivid language in writing may instead read With practice, Sally will learn to use vivid language in her writing.
Make Jan seeks new challenges into a request for parental support by changing it to read Please encourage Jan to seek new challenges. To filter websites, this extension provides two main sections namely, Just For Kids and Safe Browsing. Once you save the whitelisted websites, you will not be able to access any website other than the specified whitelisted websites. The Strong Mode is suitable for adults that mainly blocks millions of pornographic websites.
The Extra Strong mode is for children that filters out Pornographic websites along with websites containing lingerie, Sex Education, violence , etc. In both of these modes, you also get various inappropriate content categories that you can manually enable or disable to customize these modes. Overall, it is a useful web filter extension that you can use to filter out unwanted and inappropriate websites. Site Blocker is another free web filtering extension for Chrome browser.
Through this extension, you can easily filter out websites of your choice. In it, you need to manually enter all websites one by one that you want to filter out. Not just websites, but this extension can also block all the Subdomains of a blocked website and website frame in other websites.
A useful White Time Config Option is also present in here through which you can specify the time between which you do not want to filter out any website. Besides this, you can also password protect this extension. However, you will not be able to reset password in the free version of this extension.
Note : In this free version of this extension, many premium features like Synchronization , Reset Password , Uninstall Protection , etc. By purchasing the paid version, you can unlock all of its features.
BlockSite is a completely free web filtering add-on for Firefox browser. In it, you can either enter a CSV File containing links of websites or you can manually enter website links that you want to block. You can also add days and time during which blocked websites can be accessed.
If you have enabled it, you will only be able to access those websites that you have added in the blocked list. To protect this add-on from unauthorized access, you can enable the password protection by going to its Protection Menu. Besides this, you can also export all websites that you have added to the blocked list as a CSV File.
Overall, it is a capable web filtering add-on that you should consider if you use the Firefox browser. FoxFilter is another free Firefox browser add-on that works as a web filtering software.
In this add-on, you can block certain websites using their URL links or keywords contained by websites. Plus, a set of ignore phrases can also be added into this add-on so that a blocked keyword contained in the ignore phrase does not lead to website blocking.
You can also add a set of Trusted Websites that you do not want to get blocked. Besides all these features, you can also password protect this add-on so that only authorized users can access and make any changes to this web filtering add-on. After all the modifications, do not forget to save all the changes by pressing the Save Changes Button. This add-on comes with various predefined ublock filters to filter out websites with badware risk , privacy risk , resource abuse , unbreak , malware risk , etc.
Time-based controls enable the relaxation of the filtering parameters during specific times. In the workplace, this could be during lunch breaks or after working hours.
In a hotel or other service establishment, this could be after a watershed when children are less likely to be on the premises and therefore unlikely to be exposed to inappropriate online material. Implementing web content filtering software with automatic software updates can save administrators and IT support a great deal of work. In order to provide the most effective defense against web-based threats, updates should be performed in real-time rather than periodically.
Your service provider should be able to advise you on this. One of the ways that users attempt to circumnavigate filtering parameters is through the use of VPNs and anonymizer websites. Setting AUPs for individual users and user groups can be a time-consuming process. Therefore, you have a great many employees, or Internet users, it is important to have a web filtering solution that integrates with directory tools such as Active Directory.
This will make applying filtering controls to different departments and user groups much easier and quicker. If your business provides a publicly-accessible WiFi network or promotes a BYOD policy, you need to be sure your chosen content filtering software also protects WiFi access points. Content control can also be applied for internet access over WiFi networks.
Many workers now spend at least some of their working week working from home or working remotely, and the Novel Coronavirus has forced many businesses to change working practices and allow employees to work from home. Website filtering software should be able to protect workers and their devices no matter where they access the Internet, be that in the office, at home, or in a coffee shop.
The ability to customize, automate and schedule reports can ease the management burden and highlight attempts to circumnavigate the filtering parameters or breach AUPs. Email notifications of AUP violations and real-time viewing of Internet activity on your network via the web-based management portal will allow rapid action to be taken when necessary.
Your system administrator may want to configure your web content filtering software initially, but day-to-day maintenance should not draw your most highly skilled workers away from other important tasks. Make sure your web filtering software allows administrative functions such as reporting and policy control to be delegated.
If you think cloud-based website filtering software will be the best option, some solutions provide a choice of hosting options. Some service providers — but not all — can host your filtering solution in their public cloud, in a dedicated private cloud, or in your own private cloud.
Hosting the solution on your own infrastructure can have cost benefits and may be preferable for managed service providers MSPs and ISPs. If you are a reseller or MSP, it can be advantageous if the chosen web content filtering software is available in white label format. This will allow you to incorporate your own branding when providing web filtering-as-a-service to your clients as this will help you to promote your brand.
The best website filtering software may be easy to deploy, configure and manage, but what happens if a problem arises? Many web filtering solution providers fall short when it comes to customer support and are difficult to contact when you need them most. If you are unsure about whether the cost of web content filtering software can be justified, consider how much it will cost to mitigate a ransomware, malware, or phishing attack.
New malware is now being released at an alarming rate, and attacks can prove extremely costly. Many businesses are forced to permanently close their doors after a ransomware attack or data breach. It is difficult to calculate the cost of a malware infection, as the cost of remediation will depend on the nature of the attack and the extent of damage caused. However, the Ponemon Institute conducted a number of studies and surveys over the past two years to determine the average cost of malware remediation.
These costs take productivity losses and IT staffing costs into consideration; and include investigation, capturing, and evaluating intelligence, planning, cleaning, and documentation costs. When web filtering software is implemented as part of a multi-layered cybersecurity defense strategy, the risk of a successful malware infection can be substantially reduced. The cost savings from preventing a successful attack would more than cover the cost of web content filtering software.
There are additional costs to consider with some web content filtering solutions. If a gateway solution is chosen, organizations may need to factor in the cost of a web filter appliance. The cost of the appliance will depend on many factors, although the number of concurrent users that require Internet access and the number of active TCP connections required will determine the power of the appliance that needs to be purchased.
Website content filtering software pricing can vary considerably from provider to provider. Implementation of a software solution may require the cost to be paid upfront for a fixed term, although the best website filtering software solutions allow organizations to spread the cost with monthly billing.
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