To NYC administrators and educators:

I recently spoke to Mr. Joe Eaione who is the only person at the Board of Education who can "unblock" sites that are not reachable because of the filtering software on the Internet access at schools.  There are four major categories that seem to be off limits now, but if principals and superintendents sign and fax the attached memo, he will unblock them.  I have summarized these categories below:

1.  Homepage Directories-- often there are sites that are posted at domains with an address containing a "~". These are off limits now. There are some outstanding web sites that are not reachable because of this problems. 

2.  Sports --Students who want to do research about athletes are not able to do so because the entire category is blocked.  These sites often include information about health and nutrition and students are blocked from accessing them.

3.  Games -- Many sites such as http://www.alfy.com and http://www.quia.com  contain education games/puzzles for students to complete.  In addition such sites contain educational activities that can enhance classroom instruction. Because they are considered "games", they are blocked from access.

4.  Interactive e-mail -- Many sites such as "ask an expert" or sites that provide opportunities to communicate with classes such as epals.com or experts are off limits because they are considered "e-mail".  Many wonderful sites are blocked because of this.

I suggest that you review some of the sites that are presently blocked and advise your administrators of this effort to unblock the sites.  Many of the sites that I have at my web page (http://www.schoollink.org/twin) are not usable in schools because of the filtering.

The Internet can become a meaningful tool in classroom instruction.  Teachers need to have access so they can create Web-based activities. Contact me if you need help.  Click here to get to the site where you can request access to the sites that are not closed to your school --http://www.nycboe.net/offices/diit/sws/ or http://www.nycboe.net/adminorg/divisions/diit/sws/

PLEASE NOTE**--- These intranet websites are only accessible from Vlan 2 (school’s administrative network).

Please e-mail me if you have any questions. sgersh@ccny.cuny.edu

Sheila Gersh, Ed.D