Is there a way to make the internet safe w/o buying filter?

Odelyah

Thu, Feb 06 2020, 2:15 pm

amother [ Tan ] wrote:

I got tag to install techloq on my daughter’s pc. She is complaining that it’s hard to do research for her English class. She is in the ninth grade at Bais Yaakov.

I don't think this makes sense because afaik all bais yaakovs have strict internet policies and do not want their students being able to browse the internet freely for research on their own. Sometimes when my daughter was writing a paper her teacher recommended specific sites, or she would do a search that would show a list of links to articles, and she would email me the list of links or sites that came up that looked helpful and then I would whitelist those sites on her netspark account for her if they seemed OK. I'm not familiar with techloq but if it filters by categories or levels, I know with Netspark I would also be able to temporarily lower the level, or allow certain categories that are normally blocked if I thought it was what my daughter needed, for a set amount of time, and then have it go back to the regular stricter setting. You have to know your daughter. And you should find out what she really needs for school and then speak to TAG to find the best solution. They will work with you. Hatzlacha!

amother

Tan

Thu, Feb 06 2020, 3:32 pm

Odelyah wrote:

She is in the honor English class. Even though I had tag talk to Bais Yaakov anonymously for me they said that if a teacher request internet she is going to be fired the truth is that it is the opposite. Idk what to do because if I approach the school it’s going to harm my daughter because I heard stories. So techloq lets her requests each exemption and replies in about 5 minutes around the clock the person I called said each request being checked by a live person. Dd doesn’t like it because she has to wait for an approval each time. Eventually maybe if it’s a repeat request it’s going to be already open. We pay about $140 a year

Odelyah

Thu, Feb 06 2020, 3:58 pm

that's so frustrating. so actually when I set up netspark for my daughter with TAG they gave me the option to set it up with me as the admin instead of the them, which is what I wanted. This way I can log in myself and make changes (as long as I'm home and have time to go on the computer). So my kids ask me and I always try to do it for them as quickly as possible. And if I have an issue I call Netspark myself and they are usually pretty helpful. again I have no experience with techloq but maybe ask TAG about whether this would be an option with them? And whether techloq is easy to use and to deal with if you need to deal with them directly?

Odelyah

Thu, Feb 06 2020, 7:18 pm

I just noticed you said they respond within 5 mins around the clock. That's pretty good actually. (Netspark is open till 9pm ET and it works for me because as I said I am the admin so I can do most things myself and only call them if I have a problem I can't figure out myself. They are pretty helpful during hours.) Maybe your daughter can try to do a search for the sources/articles she needs first, and then give techloq (or is it TAG?) a list of a bunch of sites/links all at once to minimize the annoyance of waiting for one thing at a time. Or alternatively if you have a computer that is less filtered than hers, maybe you can sit with her while she looks stuff up and you can print them out for her. Or copy and paste and email them.