Edubeacon

A headline in the February edition of the US publication District Administration caught my eye last month.  Entitled Online Filtering Gets Smarter, it sounded worth reading as we’ve been attempting to find a middle road between managing the Internet via a whitelist and using the regular options that are fruitless when it comes to blocking proxy bypass etc.

The article was a discussion of the use of OpenDNS to manage Internet access in school districts in the US.   To quote the site:

OpenDNS is the world’s most intelligent DNS service. Our global network and our software work together symbiotically to offer a set of features custom-tailored to you, without requiring you to buy any hardware or install any software.

We’ve got it running and are exceptionally pleased with the results.  We’re not bogged down with a massive amount of management time and the OpenDNS community of users manages the content to be blocked in an exceptionally democratic way – by voting on it!  The level of restriction is up to you but there are three set groups you can start with.  I’d recommend it to anyone trying to manage the proxy bypass issues but still provide a rich learning environment.