[MACEP] FW: DANS GUARDIAN

[Theresa Broeren]

  Greetings from Forest Grove High School.

I teach hs computer applications, and use the internet quite a bit in class
for research projects, particularly for my middle and advanced students.

Our internet access is currently filtered through "Dan's Guardian", which I
believe is provided
FREE to our district.  Unfortunately, Dan's Guardian, although it has some
specialization capabilities, where certain websites can be blocked/unblocked
upon request, overall, it is FAR TOO inclusive in terms of all the websites
it blocks.  Time and time again, students will be given a research project,
and will do a search for sites for information, and typically over 50% of
the sites given may be blocked. They've been blocked from NBA.com, CNN, The
foodtv.com etc....to the point it is almost becoming rediculous to even have
a web research project because it too hard to find sites that arent blocked.

This is SOOOO frustrating for students and they are repeatedly complaining.
And for teachers....we occasionally make up our "WebQuests" and check the
sites....only to find that a few days later, the same sites that were
working, are now blocked.

What I'm curious about is....what are OTHER School Districts using?  Does
anybody have an internet filter they are using that they are happy with?
That is perhaps also low-cost or free?  I would like to compile some
information to present to our technology powers that be.

I apologize if this question has been already addressed earlier, but this is
something that I"m sure a lot of technology folks are dealing with :).

Thanks for your help, & Happy Spring Break to all!

Sincerely,

Theresa Broeren
Computer Apps Teacher
Forest Grove High School