Internet+Access

toc MSES students utilize the Internet as learning tool, most often to access web-based learning sites or to do research. Students sign an acceptable use policy at the beginning of each year, undergo significant training to ensure their effectiveness and safety on the internet, and work through a continuous web-browser filter on district machines. With increased access to technology in all aspects of our lives, however, we must make a conscious and concerted effort to model and teach appropriate use and protect against student exposure to negative sites or images. A three-pronged approach is the most effective means of keeping kids safe and making the most of their internet experiences: filtering systems that are constantly updated and enhanced; teacher and parent training, guidance, and supervision; and, most important of all, students fully trained in digital citizenship, the most effective protection.

**Students as Digital Citizens**
The Enlightened Digital Citizenship model is focused on bringing awareness to not only the typical topics we may associate with digital citizenship but also to how we relate to ourselves, those in our community, and outward. Ultimately, the safest "filter" for student internet use is a trained, empowered, and enlightened student user. For more information about the programs used at MSES to prepare students for internet access, please follow this link: Digitial Citizenship Training

Lightspeed Filtering System
All student access to the internet is filtered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at all locations, through District 14's Lightspeed Filter system. The system filters content as well as hundreds of inappropriate search words. It filters student access at all locations via our ability to set a global corporate proxy in our system. For more information visit our [|Global Proxy Page].
 * Each iPad has a global proxy setting installed by Apple Configurator and runs in the background constantly.
 * When the iPad connects to any wireless network, HTTP traffic is routed through the MSSD Lightspeed web filtering system. This also includes any app that has a third party browser. If our server is not reachable for any reason, the apps on the device that use HTTP as a transport mechanism will not be able to send or receive data.
 * Manitou Springs School District has been one of the first school districts in the country to implement global proxy settings on student issued iPads and therefore provide filtered access to internet 24/7.

Educator Supervision
Student use of the internet at school is continuously monitored and guided by educators. Students trained in digital citizenship are given explicit instruction on what access is academically sound, safe and appropriate. When students choose to move outside of this guided access, school administration will address this as a behavior issue rather than a technology issue.
 * In grades K to 3, students access only chosen internet sites via teacher-created web portals. The links to these sites are vetted and specified by the teacher before they are presented on the classroom portal. Example Portal
 * In 4th grade, students may be allowed to conduct internet searches, but only through teacher-created web portals and only after the teacher has previewed the specific search's results and images.
 * In 5th grade, students are allowed to more directly search the internet under teacher supervision and with guidelines from their training in digital citizenship.

What Students Need to Know
The internet is a valuable teaching tool. You should always use only the websites your teacher has allowed you to use or, at home, that your parents supervise you while using. Your choice to use a different site is a behavior issue and will be addressed according to school behavior guidelines.

What Parents Need to Know
Great power for learning resides in students' use of the internet. Filtering systems like Lightspeed can make that student access much safer and more effective. But while Lightspeed will catch and limit student exposure to most inappropriate internet content, there are limitations on any filter's ability to block, for example, search terms or images that are euphemisms or synonyms for inapporpriate words or search terms. As with all use of technology, students are always supervised when using the internet at school--and should always be supervised at home, as well. Parental supervision at home can range from general rules about the amount of time and locations at which students may access the internet (the famous Kitchen Table Filter, for example...) to parents' option to not allow their child to bring home an electronic device.