Westwood Public Schools (MA)
Case Study: Pilot program with middle school students
District: Westwood Public Schools
Location: Massachusetts
Devices: 1:1 Chromebooks
Business Challenge
As the district’s Director of Technology, Learning, and Innovation, Steve Ouellette wants the internet to provide a positive, productive, and empowering educational experience for his students.
Middle school students are naturally curious.
While curiosity is usually encouraged, it can lead students to web content that is highly entertaining but non-educational. Game sites and videos of Fortnite gameplay top the list.
His middle schoolers found creative ways to get past the school filter to such content.
His IT team had to constantly update blocklists to block the latest game sites and gaming videos.
He needed a better way to prevent distractions from inhibiting student learning.
“We found that Deledao was able to prevent student access to irrelevant gaming-related content on a much more consistent basis.”
Steve Ouellette, Director of Technology, Learning, and Innovation
Finding a solution
Westwood Public Schools discovers Deledao’s AI-powered, real-time web protection technology.
Steve decided to participate in a pilot program using Deledao Education to evaluate if it could be a solution. He discovered that “Deledao [Education] was able to prevent student access to irrelevant gaming-related content on a much more consistent basis” than competitors he’s evaluated.
His middle schoolers have met their match. Instead of searching Google for “snake game,” they would type “s n a k e g a m e.” Google is smart enough to understand what the students were looking for, but the typical school filter cannot understand that these are the same search query.
The typical school filter solution references a list of blocked websites and keywords when deciding whether or not to block a webpage. IT staff can only block “s n a k e g a m e” after adding it to the list of keywords. Imagine the number of variations that must be added!
However, Deledao’s real-time analysis engines read each page like a human, scanning the webpage as content loads. By detecting, blocking, and learning in real time, the AI engines quickly catch and close loopholes.
“The real-time text, image, and video analysis essentially eliminate a lot of inappropriate and distracting content in ways that are superior to other products we’ve tested”
Steve Ouellette, Director of Technology, Learning, and Innovation
The real-time nature of Deledao’s technology also effectively prevented middle schoolers from distracting themselves with YouTube videos of Fortnite gameplay. There is now no need to block YouTube entirely. After all, there is plenty of educational material on YouTube.
Ever-expanding blocklists are a thing of the past. The simple setup and management of Deledao Education as a cloud-based software gives Steve and his team time to take care of other pressing IT needs.
“Deledao [Education] buys the peace of mind that other solutions I’ve looked at don’t necessarily have.”
The Result
After placing students under the care of Deledao’s real-time web protection during the pilot program, Westwood Public Schools saw a significant decrease in time spent off-task.
Students could access more of the web without running into inappropriate content or being blocked from accessing useful sites altogether. After the pilot program, Westwood Public Schools subscribed to Deledao ActiveInsights to protect all its middle and high school students.
Westwood rolls out Deledao ActiveInsight to all middle and high school students.