Getting Help

If you are experiencing technical difficulties with internet connection or internet software, please contact Tech Support at your campus.

If you wish to discuss the Internet Access Settings or if you have a request to unblock a website, please contact the IT Director.

Explanation

We currently operate with two different connections to the internet to have redundancy in case of failures with one company.

The Internet Access Settings for the filtering software are arranged by location and category within the school. If you feel that a site should not be blocked, please email the IT Director indicating level of urgency and whether the site is personal or business related by using this link.

These settings have been determined in conversation with the staff and/or the administrators responsible for each area. The intention of the settings is to maximize academic use and student safety while conserving internet bandwidth.

For this reason, audio and video downloads (except from exception sites) will not be permitted as it utilizes a great deal of bandwidth and storage space (2GB limit in account). If you have an academic need, please contact the IT Director. Advertisements have been blocked to save you from the time and bandwidth required to download these ads. Game playing will be restricted due to bandwidth, wear and tear, and academic preference. Email, chat and Messenger type applications will be permitted due to the nature of our staff, but please note that this use can be monitored and this policy is subject to change.

Staff and students are reminded to use all technology in a professional manner.

Internet Access and Download Facts

There are no hard and fast rules to download as far as what is costly and what is not costly. For instance, it is possible to find a very short video which can have less file size than a Word document with photos. However, in general this list is written in order from the most "heavy" bandwidth items to the least.

• video (heaviest)
• audio
• photos
• web pages with photos
• pdf
• text documents
• text web pages
• emails (lightest)

Streaming Versus Download
If you can see something on the Internet on your computer screen, you already downloaded it. Streams just start before downloading the entire video/audio file. So listening to one hour of radio is just like downloading a file for one hour. It costs the school bandwidth.

Incoming/Outgoing Whether you look at a site on the Internet or if someone on the Internet looks at your site, it causes internet connection traffic; therefore, we pay for the bandwidth in both cases (i.e. we pay to surf and we pay to host). For this reason, we may need to restrict the amount of photos, audio and video posted on your websites here at the school. Likewise, when you publish photos or send large email attachments, it costs the school bandwidth (money and speed).