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FAQs

Too much screen time has always been a concern. Blocksi wants to put you at ease.

Parents and teachers have long cautioned about the use of technology. But the fear is no longer just about it “rotting children’s brains” or “not getting enough exercise.” When the pandemic shut down schools across the United States for most of 2020, it kicked the digital door wide open.

Remote classrooms were supposed to be temporary. It was an emergency measure to keep education moving. This type of instruction has been long perceived as supplemental. But, since the COVID-19 protections have been rolled back, the online learning model remains entrenched.

This produces a whole new set of issues. Children must be glued to their devices not just for fun anymore, but also for school. Long hours in front of a screen still remains worrisome to parents. According to a Pew Research Center survey, 63 percent of K-12 parents were concerned about too much screen time. This is the highest-rated problem among guardians whose children were receiving only online instruction.

Blocksi offers a solution.

Blocksi is a K-12 web filter and classroom screen monitoring software designed to minimize screen time and online threats while maximizing the overall educational experience. Out of necessity, students are stuck in front of their monitors. With this innovative platform, teachers and parents can reassert control over what is being consumed.

Below are some FAQs on Blocksi and its role in the evolution of online learning.

Blocksi is a platform for managing the digital needs of the modern classroom. Blocksi is a classroom screen monitoring software and K-12 web filter. This powerful, cloud-based solution empowers parents, teachers, delegates, and administrators. At its core, it gives greater control of a child’s online content. Compatible with Chromebooks, Windows-OS devices, and iOS devices, Blocksi automatically filters websites, social media, and YouTube content to meet K-12 educational guidelines and demands.

From the dashboard, Blocksi filters content, collects analytics, and manages its student users. Inside the classroom, the software monitors screen time during in-person and virtual learning across all Google Workspace apps. Outside the classroom, it continues to set limits on what students experience while watching, browsing, or searching. It produces actionable data to detect trends, including cyberbullying and other harmful behaviors. Both parents and teachers benefit from these safeguards. For administrators, additional tools and reporting help align the entire district and proactively address issues.

Blocksi is non-proxy and hardware-free. Entirely cloud-based, Blocksi technology operates at the browser level, not at the network level. It functions with any Chromebook, Windows, iPad, Mac, and Android platform through the existing Google Workspace for Education infrastructure. A Google domain, administrative user, and a Blocksi sign in are all that’s needed to get started.

According to a PwC report, only 10 percent of surveyed teachers feel secure in incorporating new, higher-level technology into classrooms. With this in mind, Blocksi presents an effortless experience for both teachers and parents. Most of the work is done on the back end. The K-12 web filter is controllable from its easy-to-use dashboard. If more help is needed, the Blocksi.net Help Center contains even more resources.

The view is different depending on the user. Administrators have access to raw data, trend analysis, reporting, and viewing habits. These can be broken down by the user and downloaded into PDFs. Location tracking minimizes devices being lost or stolen. For teachers, their dashboard monitors every student’s screen to enforce and manage content in real-time. Blocksi supports remote learning as well. Parents are more aware of a school’s goals, even at home. Through the K-12 web filter, they can limit streaming access and enforce time restrictions. The AI-powered file scanning can identify troubling or harmful behavior and notify administrators and parents through automated alerts.

Blocksi is a privately-held company. Its headquarters is located in Palo Alto, CA, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Fuad Bahou is the current CEO.

Blocksi was founded in 2011, with a mission to connect apps and software that enable people to exert more control over their internet consumption. It balances this care for both students and devices with a low-cost product. Since it began, Blocksi has grown to nearly 50 employees.

The K-12 web filter works for school districts, homes, and businesses wanting to set online content and time boundaries. It filters across 85 different web categories and 32 YouTube categories. It uses SafeSearch and image blurring for text, images, and video with all major search engines. It also uses in-app control features.

Blocksi is backed by some of the largest brands in this space. The company is a Microsoft Partner and a Google for Education Partner. Previously, it was named a Lenovo Trusted Supplier. Blocksi is a valued partner and strong resource due to its online guides and tutorials. The Blocksi.net website stores how-to videos and walkthroughs, organized into groups. This makes it an easily implemented software solution for any user.

Blocksi pricing can vary depending on the size of the school district and the number of devices used. Parents, teachers, and education officials can try it for free for 30 days. After that, they will need to request a quote from one of the company’s customer service representatives.

Any Chrome-supported client can run Blocksi. The extension works on macOS and Windows Desktop, in addition to Chromebooks. Just make sure Chrome is installed and is the default browser. There is a deployment process for macOS and Windows that includes additional files and configuration tools that must be used.

In remote learning classrooms, the camera can be used for audio-video conferencing. Entering this mode is safe and secure. If a device is lost or stolen, Blocksi activates a unique navigator that collects data, including location, screenshots, and camera images. These can be used in the recovery and return of the device.

On the dashboard, teachers view students’ screen activity as tiles. When clicked, the display becomes full-screen with metrics from that class session. This up-to-date report includes any URLs or videos previously watched. Teachers can also see any tabs currently open on each student’s device. Classroom-specific filters can be applied and enforced for an individual student. Teachers can take even more control and close out any unwanted websites, push content to the student’s browser, or completely pause the internet for a period of time. When taking a test or assessment, access to resources can also be restricted.

Blocksi is a legal, classroom management tool designed to help monitor, share, and communicate. In fact, the platform helps many school districts maintain compliance with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA). CIPA mandates that schools and libraries filter any internet services and adopt formal Terms of Use policies. Custom Blocksi extensions go beyond federal requirements without sacrificing access for teachers and administrators.

Blocksi is a trusted partner for Microsoft, Google, and Lenovo. To be endorsed by these industry leaders, the classroom screen monitoring software undergoes high levels of scrutiny. There are often routine re-evaluations to make sure these standards are continuously met. With a simple download, Blocksi actually makes going online a safer experience for students. It provides category, keyword, video, and image filtering options. If a student displays a pattern of harmful language or behavior, Blocksi alerts adult users. These protocols ensure safety for all students using the software.

As the name implies, Blocksi Manager Education Everywhere (BMEE) offers four, linked dashboards that are available anywhere, at any time. Because BMEE doesn’t use any hardware, administrators, teachers, delegates, and parents unite to construct a virtual screen monitoring platform for students that is entirely secure. At school or in the cloud, students do not face slow response times or errors. This integrated system is offered as a bundle package for school districts wanting to foster safe, online learning environments.

Available from the teacher dashboard, the message function is between a teacher and a student only. Students cannot message each other. A teacher can message an entire class, a specific set of students, or just one student. The chat bubble icon can be used as a direct message. This dialogue can continue, as needed. If “Message All” is selected, all students will immediately see the message and can respond. The teacher is notified by the blinking tile under the student’s name.

Yes, BMEE does not rely on any hardware security appliance, whether at school or in the cloud, via a virtual security appliance. BMEE relies on a fully distributed database architecture in the cloud.

Visit bm.blocksi.net, where you will find options to use either Google or Microsoft.

No, BMEE is to be used with any Chrome browser whether on a Chromebook or on a desktop (Windows or macOS) and sits directly in the browser, filtering at the browser level rather than at the network level.

Blocksi Manager Education Everywhere leverages the Google Workspace for Education Ecosystem and pushes it to every Chrome client's extensions through the Google Cloud. As such, deploying an efficient and granular filtering policy across a 20,000-Chrome-client school district does not take more than 10 minutes.

The Administrator dashboard is a cloud-based dashboard that you can access from anywhere, including from your smartphone. It is secured by your Google Workspace Administrator account.

Yes, the Administrator dashboard allows you to not only grant access to the parents and teachers for their respective dashboards, but also enables specific features on the Teacher and Parent Dashboards, such as filtering policies for teacher's classes, as well as Blocksi content analysis for cyberbullying and for other inappropriate online behavior.

Yes, you can use BMEE with any other device that supports Chrome browser and extensions, whether on a macOS or Windows Desktop, but each does have its own deployment requirements.

You can prevent the use of a third-party browser, other than Chrome, by using apps such as Net App or use Blocksi DNS along with the Blocksi browser for Windows and macOS.

BMEE supports very rich and enhanced Buyout filtering. For example, you can block all YouTube content or specific parts of YouTube while allowing only channels of your choice. BMEE YouTube filtering allows filtering across 32 YouTube categories, channels, and content description as well as exception lists. Exception lists support two modes of filtering: strict and moderate.

BMEE supports geofencing, meaning that you can have different filtering policies based upon the location of the Chromebook or Chrome browser. At the same time, it supports time-scheduled filtering policies, and as such, allows you to set different granular filtering policies onto the Chromebook or Chrome browser at certain times of the day.

BMEE supports full analytics per user, per organizational unit, and per action, and provides content analysis to detect misbehavior at a per user level across 12 misbehavior categories such as cyberbullying, profanity, etc.

No, BMEE does not use proxy for URL categorization. The Blocksi extension sends categorization requests to the Blocksi Cloud service. Traffic does not traverse any Blocksi-maintained proxy server.

Yes, Blocksi solution supports HTTP and HTTPS protocols.

Yes, BMEE can be found on Google Workspace Marketplace and the Blocksi extension is also available in the Chrome Webstore.