Recently, the staff of The Green Pride was struck with a disaster. Font downloading website DaFont was blocked by the school web filters. We used this site to download fonts for our pages and other design projects. While it makes sense that sites like Instagram, or Twitter, are blocked to prevent students from wasting time and disrupting instructing at school, the strict level of the web filters block useful sites like DaFont, with few options to get around the filters.

While social media can be distracting in schools, it also has some educational opportunities. Twitter can be used to see the thoughts of politicians, world leaders and journalists, and can be an important source of real time information, not just memes. Additionally, YouTube is another important resource for finding educational resources, but many videos are blocked on student computers, many with seemingly no connection to explicit content. Another site, the messaging app GroupMe is not accessible on school wifi. While Apple’s iMessaging system and regular text messages can be received inside the school, GroupMe messages cannot. This system is often used by teachers and club groups, as it is an easy way to contact people without having to use a personal phone number. Students would benefit from being able to stay connected to these groups while in the building.

Additionally, these restrictions typically do not work to prevent students from accessing social media on their mobile devices. Since these restrictions have been common for several years, it is no secret that students use VPN’s to get around these restrictions. However, these can leave phones and other devices vulnerable to malware attacks and other cybersecurity risks. Students can also use mobile data plans, which often have unreliable service in the building and can be expensive. Since these restrictions usually do not prevent students from accessing these sites anyways, it would be easier to remove the harsh restrictions in order to keep the school network safter from potential security concerns and make educational connection easier for students who do not use their own mobile devices at school.

Clearly, some web filters will still be necessary on school computers. However, social media sites, YouTube and many other random sites such as DaFont can be educational tools when used properly and with the supervision of teachers. USD 232 should consider using less restrictive web filters in order to give students more learning opportunities in the digital age.