[Year 12 IPM] Proxy avoiding web sites and individual useraccounts

Stephen Digby digby.stephen.p at edumail.vic.gov.au
Thu Dec 14 16:04:29 EST 2006


The rational for restricting access to internet at school is that it is not
fundamentally an educational resource at all, but a commercial and
entertainment resource.

We restrict access so that the bandwidth, storage demand and temptations are
all reduced to increase the likelihood that students will concentrate on
learning the important things cf. what I have seen in many "richer" school
where most IT activity (despite some promos) is related to adding to mp3,
mpeg and graphics collections with close to zero learning benefit.

Send a student into the newsagent with 2 dollars to buy a newspaper and they
might do so (I agree with you that they need to be supervised as well, or
they would buy chewy instead)
Send a student into a news agency to buy anything they want and just you see
if the newspaper is included when they come to the counter with all those
sealed packs !!!

I am old enough to remember TV being touted as a wonderful classroom
educational resource that students would have self regulated access to so
that they could learn from the world......
That idea never eventuated either.  Give them unrestricted cable access at
school.... I wonder what they would watch ?????

============================================================================
==========
Stephen Digby, Learning Technology Manager 
mailto:admin at cheltsec.vic.edu.au  
Cheltenham Secondary College www.cheltsec.vic.edu.au Ph: 613 955 55 955  Fx:
9555 8617
============================================================================
==========


There are many elements to a campaign. Leadership is number one. Everything
else is number two. Bernd Brecher

-----Original Message-----
From: ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au [mailto:ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au] On
Behalf Of Cameron Bell
Sent: 14 December 2006 12:57 PM
To: Year 12 Information Technology Processing and Management
Teachers'MailingList
Subject: Re: [Year 12 IPM] Proxy avoiding web sites and individual
useraccounts

We have decided to move away from charging for net access and fund open
access  to the internet as it is simply too an important resource to
restrict access to. We decided that the hassle teachers had with students
not being able to access websites was restricting take-up of ICT in the
classroom. Teachers were fed up with students not being able access websites
without prior submission to the education channel - especially when it
restricted free-form investigation and research.
The down side is that students won't have "free" access to computers and
will need to be supervised.
You have to convince the admin that it has to fund the internet as a core
component to education. It is used across all KLA's and is an essential tool
for education. It is not an addon- it is core component. 
I'm not sure many admins can see that just yet.
If the electricity bill is over budget  they can find the money to pay that,
they don't just turn off all power or tell kids they can only use the lights
if they pay a power fee.
There are tools like Packateer ($$  :(  ) that can enable access to be
tailored to a packet by packet basis. You may want to look at something like
that to help keep costs down. If you artificially slow the link or restrict
certain traffic you can keep costs down without removing access completely.
Fight for free access.
Cheers
Cameron


fiona at balmoralhs.vic.edu.au wrote:
> Do you give the students a starting balance on each account and, if 
> so, how much
>
> thanks
> Fiona (the other kind of Bain)
> Balmoral
> "Bane, Janet A" <bane.janet.a at edumail.vic.gov.au> on Thu, 14 Dec 2006
10:32:09 +1100 wrote:
>   
>> Hi Kim
>> there is a very simple solution to this problem - start charging the kids
for their internet usage!  I think you would find that most schools do.  Our
system is called Gaia Print and Net charger.  Not only do we charge for
internet usage, we also charge 10c per print out.  Its amazing what "needs"
to be accessed and what doesn't when they have to pay for it!
>>
>> regards,
>> Janet Bane
>> Patterson River SC.
>>
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: ipm-bounces at edulists.com.au on behalf of 
>> kgration at myrtlefordsc.vic.edu.au
>> Sent: Wed 13-Dec-06 3:31 PM
>> To: ipm at edulists.com.au
>> Subject: [Year 12 IPM] Proxy avoiding web sites and individual user 
>> accounts
>>
>>
>>
>> Dear List,
>>
>> During the last few months our wonderful students have discovered
treasure troves of proxy avoiding web sites (e.g. vtunnel, kproxy, flyproxy
etc. etc. etc.) with multiple variations of each of these and numerous
others as the URL. Most of these sites are secure (i.e. https:// <https:///>
rather than http:// <http:///> ) so are difficult to block or usually
totally unblockable using the SINA front end. The Year 10-12 students are
particularly notorious for this kind of behaviour. Blocking the source IP
address appears to be the only rather fragmented solution to this problem .
. . but this essentially amounts to a game of catch up . . . and without a
full time tech. usually means a call to Editure . . . who aren't always 100%
successful either.
>>
>> Not surprisingly our Internet budget has basically been blown as a
result. I am now considering taking away individual user accounts for
student Internet use and having Learning Area, Year Level or some other
account structure where teachers enter the password for students in their
care.
>>
>> Does anyone out there have any gems of wisdom (bright ideas) or
perspectivesto share in this area?
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Kim
>>
>> ---
>> Kim Gration
>> ICT Manager
>> Myrtleford Secondary College
>> http://www.myrtlefordsc.vic.edu.au 
>> <http://www.myrtlefordsc.vic.edu.au/>
>> _______________________________________________
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>
>
> ---
> fiona at balmoralhs.vic.edu.au
> http://www.balmoralhs.vic.edu.au/
> _______________________________________________
> http://www.edulists.com.au - FAQ, resources, subscribe, unsubscribe 
> IPM Mailing List kindly supported by http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au - 
> Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority and 
> http://www.vitta.org.au  - VITTA Victorian Information Technology 
> Teachers Association Inc
>
>   

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