Leading the Way in South Dakota: Pierre School District Sets Higher Standards for Filtering in K-12 with Real-Time AI
Organization: Pierre School District
Location: South Dakota
Grade Levels: K-12
Devices: Chromebooks, Windows, iPads, Macs
The Pierre School District was struggling with content filtering solutions that did not meet their needs in today's digital learning environment.
After switching solutions multiple times, the Pierre School District found Deledao, a solution that simply works. The district experienced firsthand how much better it is to use the only K-12 filter powered by real-time AI technology.
The Challenge
School districts are facing new challenges with content filtering in 2024 compared to what they were dealing with just a few years ago. The evolution of the internet has far surpassed the evolution of many solutions being used in K-12 schools today.
Bryan Linn, the Technology Director at the Pierre School District, recognized that what they were using previously was ineffective in addressing present-day challenges posed by the modern web.
"Legacy content filtering solutions that simply rely on URL and category allowlisting and blocklisting just do not meet the needs of our classrooms in 2024," said Bryan.
"Simply blocking YouTube.com is not a viable option. Schools need a way to allow access to such content but still ensure that students can access educational content within those websites."
"AI-driven content filters, along with other security measures such as physical firewalls, are necessary to ensure students are secure and accessing appropriate content while traversing the web on school-provided devices."
"Our students are on their devices today more than ever. Gaming sites, social media outlets, and online audio and video sources can be major distractions for students in our classrooms. It is challenging to simply block these sites, for in addition to being a distraction at times, they can also be used as valuable learning tools in our classrooms."
Bryan Linn
Technology Director
Pierre School District
Finding a solution
With the onset of the COVID-19 Pandemic in the Spring of 2020, the Pierre School District looked to expand its 1:1 initiative from its high school into its middle school.
The district had an obligation to ensure its students were protected while using their school devices off campus. However, the current solutions used within the district did not meet the district's needs.
Bryan started testing other content filtering solutions on the market.
Schools are required to protect students online even when they are off campus with school devices.
One big-name solution integrated well with his tech stack but was designed as an enterprise solution. It did not suit the purposes of a filter in K-12 well. It lacked the visibility in reporting that could be easily shared and understood by school staff and parents.
Bryan then tried a Big Ed Tech solution but could not get it to work on browsers other than Chrome. That was a deal breaker.
Equally significant was that the pricing of Big Ed Tech solutions was out of reach for school districts like Pierre.
Over five years, Bryan tested multiple filter solutions, but none worked well with Pierre's mix of devices, operating systems, and classroom management tool.
That's when Bryan discovered Deledao. Because of its use of real-time AI in filtering, Deledao seemed like an innovative solution worth checking out. Bryan contacted Deledao and set up a free pilot.
He soon realized that he found an affordable and functional solution that met the needs of his students, staff, and parents.
"Deledao's real-time AI technology is a game changer. For years, schools have fought to block inappropriate content in Google Images, YouTube videos, advertisements, and games. Deledao's ability to filter this content out is huge for our school district!"
Bryan Linn
Technology Director
Pierre School District
Deledao solved the content filtering issues he's been dealing with for years.
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Deledao filters Chromebooks on and off-site.
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Deledao is designed for K-12, not enterprise companies. (Learn more here: Deledao Awarded Research-Based Design Product Certification by Digital Promise)
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Deledao offers reasonable pricing for its high value, not hiked-up costs by big EdTech companies.
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Deledao has its own Classroom Management solution that replaced Pierre's old classroom management tool to help consolidate vendors.
After systematically reviewing multiple content filtering solutions over multiple years, Bryan concluded that Deledao beat the competition at every point of comparison.
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No one else uses artificial intelligence in real-time to block embedded games on Google and blur online videos and images. The multi-layered real-time AI technology is unique to Deledao. It includes InstantAI™, GameChanger™, MediaMonitor™, and ProxyGuard™.
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The district's IT team has full control of and visibility into the Deledao solution.
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The initial setup and configuration were effortless.
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He could create unlimited policies and tie them to different Organization Units by school, grade level, etc.
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The reporting is easily understandable and shareable with admins, teachers, parents, etc.
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The school district can give parents the ability to view and manage off-campus online activity on the school device. For example, parents can disable access to things like YouTube.com at whatever hour they feel fit while the student is at home.
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Teachers can temporarily give students access to blocked websites in class for educational purposes. Teachers don't have to wait for someone from IT to answer their IT ticket. There's no interruption to classroom learning.
The Pierre School District ended up buying the content filtering, classroom management, and student wellness monitoring solutions from Deledao.
"All of the features that Deledao offered, the use of AI, the reasonable cost, and the intuitive management interface was what sold us on Deledao."
Bryan Linn
Technology Director
Pierre School District
The Result
"As a result of our implementation of Deledao, games are no longer a significant distraction in our classrooms. I have not had a single teacher reach out about games being an issue this year!" exclaimed Bryan.
"Deledao's AI does a really nice job of figuring out what is and what is not a game. Students are probably still finding ways to play games; however, Deledao has knocked game usage back enough that gaming is not anywhere near the distraction it used to be in classrooms. When I first implemented Deledao, games equated to about 75% of the sites Deledao was blocking. Now that number is closer to 20%. That tells me that students are just giving up on trying to get to games."
The school district has also seen the benefits of Deledao's student wellness monitoring solution firsthand.
"The Deledao wellness solution is amazing. We have had multiple situations this school year where the system alerts made us immediately aware that the student was struggling and needed help. These situations were serious, and it was pretty amazing to get that little bit of insight into those children's well-being and then be able to notify the people who could help them immediately. As far as I am concerned, these few student wellness alerts have paid for the entire implementation of Deledao tenfold."
Bryan Linn
Technology Director
Pierre School District
Bryan sums up his experience transitioning to Deledao's real-time AI solution:
"Other solutions just weren't working for us, and we needed to find an affordable solution that could meet the needs of our schools today."
"After trying multiple products over the past few years, Deledao came out as the clear winner for us. Deledao's real-time AI has been a game changer for our district. It is a fantastic solution, and I have recommended it to everyone I have seen asking about content filtering solutions today."