As students learn to navigate VPNs, proxies, and generative AI tools at alarming rates, K-12 IT teams are playing a more nuanced role in promoting digital safety and wellbeing. At the same time, districts are facing high expectations from parents who are increasingly concerned about their children’s technology habits.
IT leaders need comprehensive EdTech solutions that not only help address student online safety holistically, but also alleviate IT burden. Here are three of the biggest challenges we’re seeing in K-12 this year, and where EdTech can help.
Increasing Need for Granularity and Flexibility in Filtering
Protecting students from inappropriate digital content is a moving goalpost. With new websites popping up daily and students discovering fresh workarounds, many IT admins spend far too much time in the filter.
It’s easy for students to set up a VPN or proxy website with just a few clicks. When combined with problematic trends in the use of AI for cyberbullying, IT teams are swamped simply trying to stay on top of emerging technologies.
To protect against digital risks without draining resources, IT leaders can seek out EdTech providers with processes dedicated to consistently updating and maintaining their filter’s signature lists and policies. It’s important to ensure that new websites are blocked as quickly as possible, while protecting IT workloads.
It’s also important to speak to your EdTech provider about future-proofing your filtering against the fast turnaround of online content. For example, Linewize has introduced the Content-aware Module for our School Manager filter to give schools the ability to blur images in real time on any website. This innovative feature assesses content on each page individually, to prevent students from viewing harmful images across websites and search engines — including uncategorized and proxy sites.
District IT teams can further maximize their resources by seeking solutions that proactively consider the role of teachers in filtering. By leveraging a filter that integrates with your classroom management software, IT can empower teachers to adjust some filtering rules to manage their classrooms — while preserving school-wide filter policies and reducing IT time spent on filter requests.
While comprehensive, content-aware filtering is one way districts can combat digital risks, filtering is only the first step in student safety strategy to meet today’s challenges. IT teams must contend not only with harmful content students may encounter online, but also the potential for students to create harmful content themselves, a concern that’s been exacerbated by generative AI.
Managing the Rise of Generative AI
Generative AI tools have opened new possibilities for student learning, along with new risks to student safety and wellbeing.
It didn’t take long for students to begin using AI to create and distribute harmful content about their peers and even their teachers. Generative AI has also compounded risks of students being targeted with misinformation, grooming, online scams, and other bad actors on the internet.
We are still defining the right balance for AI in a K-12 school setting, and EdTech tools are a crucial resource for districts at this stage. To start, your filter should give you the flexibility to block and allow AI tools as needed to align with your district’s policies. Further, as more districts begin to allow AI tools for educational value, it is crucial to have EdTech in place that can monitor and alert you when students are using AI in potentially unsafe ways.
The rise of AI and other technologies is not just a challenge for schools, but for parents too, leading more families to turn to their school districts for support and information around their children’s digital activities.
Engaging and Communicating with Parents
The need to engage and involve parents in student digital safety is top of mind for the districts we partner with. Amid heightened awareness of the youth mental health crisis, warnings from the U.S. surgeon general, and data on the impacts of screen time, parents have a growing interest in what their children are doing online.
Yet there remains a significant awareness gap between parents and the technology their children use; a gap that schools are positioned to help address. One of the first steps your district can take is to provide parents with insights into screen time on school devices. By sharing visibility into their children’s digital activities, districts can help parents become active partners in fostering student online safety.
Beyond visibility and controls, parents also need — and in many cases, are asking for — more education regarding online safety. To achieve this, district leaders can seek to partner with their EdTech solution provider. For instance, districts can leverage our Online Safety Hub to provide their parents with updated, expert-created resources on digital trends, app and game reviews, online safety guidance and more. This is just one way that schools and EdTech providers can partner together to make it easier for schools to build engaging, trust-based relationships with their parent communities, without adding strain to already overburdened school staff members.
Adopting EdTech to Elevate Safety While Alleviating Burden
Our K-12 districts are grappling with complex and nuanced digital challenges, often tasked to IT leaders without a clear roadmap. To meet these challenges, today’s K-12 EdTech is about more than just software; it’s about the team behind the tools. A trusted EdTech provider that offers a comprehensive and adaptable approach to student safety can become your district’s strategic partner.
It’s more critical for IT directors to find solutions that not only help you manage the intricate landscape of digital risks, but also lighten your team’s workload, allowing you to focus on your biggest priorities in keeping students safe online and fostering a healthy educational environment.
About the author
Harrison Parker is Executive Vice President of Linewize.
Because we believe strongly in building successful school-family partnerships, Linewize offers access to our parental control app, Qustodio, at no cost for districts using our filtering and classroom management solutions. This empowers districts to give parents and guardians essential visibility into their children’s online activity. If they wish, districts can even extend filter controls outside of school hours, allowing parents to set additional rules and time limits at home.
