Great tools to keep our kids safe – and save time

robyn PEarCE

Great tools to keep our kids safe – and save time

The cost – and convenience – are perfect for schools.

Asa grandmother as well as a time management specialist, I pricked up my ears when a friend started talking about high-impact ways to block inappropriate web content for children, a vital form of protecting children from abuse. That initial chat opened up an interesting, cost-effective and time-efficient suite of technology services for not only schools but also the business world. And a side benefit has been that I also discovered another New Zealand export success story. Yet again, a small home-grown business is at the forefront of technology innovation on a global scale.

A brief overview

This local business is Watchdog, www. watchdog.net.nz, the first ISP in NZ to provide filtered Internet access for families, schools and businesses. About two thirds of all schools in New Zealand are now using one or more of their services under a contract with the Ministry of Education. Their list of services is so comprehensive that I’ll just highlight a few.

They supply both hardware and connectivity services, act as a filtering gateway and also provide a big range of other cloud-based applications. A recent example of their global impact can be discovered on a small island in the Indian Ocean. The ICT Authority of Mauritius recently installed a national Internet filtering system for the island, aimed at blocking access to child sexual abuse (CSA) web sites for all Internet users. Trials of the system over a four-month period prior to the installation had logged 142,000 accesses to web sites containing CSA material from one ISP network in the country (population 1.25 million).

robyn PEarCE

Safety for schools and time savings for business Cloud-based services reduce overheads

A number of other companies provide individuals with the opportunity to block sites, Net Nanny being one. The difference with Watchdog is that it works at the ISP level for a country or a group of subscribers. That alone is a huge time-saver.

They use fixed blocking to sites relating to: Cloud-based applications and services (located and accessed via the Internet rather than in the local school network) remove a huge overhead for schools and business. My own business is now cloud-based.

Often, where the school is unable to afford

the expertise to manage these services, a keen (or not so keen!) teacher is left to do so her own time or to try and squeeze into precious student-focused work hours. The reduction in overheads (and especially time) by using cloud-based services can be enormous. Often the cost and time spent in organising, setting up, upgrading and managing these services is overlooked or underestimated.

The time and resource-saving benefits follow on to the teachers and students in the classroom. Previously, work saved to the local network needed to be printed or saved to a USB stick and taken home. With cloud-based applications like Watchdog’s KnowledgeNET Learning Management System, personal work and shared resources can be accessed, worked on and saved from any Internet-connected PC. The tragic events in Christchurch highlight the benefits of such a service. Devastating damage to schools and infrastructure meant students, teachers and staff were unable to communicate and work for extended periods. The cost and time associated with disaster recovery of hardware and document retrieval is huge and takes many months. Those schools utilising cloud applications were able (once 3G or Internet access was restored) to continue working and communicating with little if any stop in service.

In a school environment, safety for students whilst accessing the Internet from school is important. Schools often spend a great deal of time blocking access to certain websites or web services as well as spam management. Given the expanding size of the web world, this job is not going away! CampusNET automatically filters this for the school.

And if you’re wondering about the cost, Watchdog is accredited by the NZ Ministry of Education to provide Managed Internet Services to all state and state-integrated schools free of charge. Nothing to complain about in that pricing structure.

• anarchy (weapons, terrorism, killing methods)

• criminal skills (pyrotechnics, computer hacking, password cracking, murder)

• drugs (the use or purchase of illegal drugs)

• gambling

• hate and discrimination

• obscene and tasteless material (mutilation, bodily functions, horror, death, candid scenes, violence) “ using this kind of service, a client can also use customised blocking.

This allows you to block sites beyond the fixed blocking categories. These might include whole categories or specific website addresses relating to material on topics like alcohol, public chat sites, and cults. “

• Pornography (any sort of nudity or vulgarity)

• R-rated (dating services, lingerie and swimsuits, revealing pictures)

• Social networking (MySpace, Bebo,

Facebook etc)

I’ve heard a number of stories of business people spending as much as half of their time on sites such as Trademe and Facebook during business hours. Using this kind of service, a client can also use customised blocking. This allows you to block sites beyond the fixed blocking categories. These might include whole categories or specific website addresses relating to material on topics like alcohol, public chat sites, cults, automobiles or sports, entertainment, games, humour and shopping.