Limiting Website Use
Overview
To block troublesome or distracting websites or limit students to a select few websites pertinent to the class, use the Limit Web feature in LanSchool Classic. The teacher can choose to restrict all web activity, allow only certain websites, or block only certain websites. This is often used to keep students focused or to create lessons that require students to access only certain sites.
Here's a short video, demonstrating how to limit website access for students:
Requirements
LanSchool Classic can limit student website access in Google Chrome, Safari, and Microsoft Edge.
Due to changes in Mozilla Firefox's requirements, Web Limiting does NOT work with Firefox. The Mozilla Firefox extension is currently not supported and is under review. It's recommended to utilize the Limit Apps feature to restrict the Firefox browser.
A browser extension must be present in the student's browser in order for these restrictions to be applied. If you're experiencing trouble with Web Limiting, see Troubleshooting Web Limiting. You may need to contact your LanSchool Air site administrator.
If you are using LanSchool Classic in a Thin Client/ Terminal Services environment, web limiting is not supported.
Configuring Limit Web
- Click on the drop-down arrow to the right of the Limit Web button in the toolbar.
- Select Configure Web Limiting...
- Select the Web Limiting tab.
- Select either Block All, Allowed Web Sites or Blocked Web Sites and add website addresses to those lists.
Adding Websites to the List
When adding websites to the Allowed or Blocked lists, start by entering only the site's domain name to allow or block the entire site (e.g. facebook.com, google.com).
Entering a more specific website address (e.g. mail.google.com, en.wikipedia.org) will only block or allow that specific part of the website.
There is a 30,000 character limit or 1400 bytes.
Examples:
- Add to Blocked Sites: facebook.com Result: All parts of facebook.com will blocked.
- Add to Blocked Sites: mail.google.com Result: All parts of mail.google.com will be blocked, but docs.google.com will be allowed
- Add to Allowed Sites: docs.google.com/document/d/1llCNxxxxx Result: This specific Google Doc link will be allowed. All others will be blocked.
LanSchool Classic cannot disable private or incognito browsing and cannot limit websites open in private or incognito browsing.
It is recommended to contact your organization's IT team to block incognito/private browsing use with device management policies.
Using Wildcards
Use an asterisk (*) to act as a wildcard character to specify even more websites in your allowed or blocked website lists.
Examples:
- Add to Blocked Sites: https://*youtube.com/ Result: All parts of youtube.com will be blocked.
- Add to Blocked Sites: https://*.*games* Result: All websites with the word "games" in the URL will be blocked.
- Add to Allowed Sites: https://*.*london* Result: All websites with the word "london" in the URL will be allowed.
- Add to Allowed Sites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo* Result: Only the Lenovo section of Wikipedia will be allowed.
If the student is taken to a completely different domain (website) than what is in the Allow or Block List, that website will need to be added to the list. For example: A student logs into the main page of their SIS but it then takes them to the school's domain. You will need to add the school's domain to the list.
Enabling Limit Web on Student Computers
- Select one or more student computer thumbnails. If none are selected, all computers will be limited.
- Click the Limit Web icon in the toolbar. Use the drop-down arrow to select either Block All, Allow List or Block List.
When a student accesses a site that is not allowed, they will be redirected to a LanSchool Access Denied page. If the Allow List is selected, a list of allowed websites will appear.
To stop limiting the web, click the Limit Web button again to toggle this feature off.
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