And I totally agree with the home email account statement you made because the school wants us to be using all of this technology and all of these tools, however, we cannot access them.

It seems most school districts put blocks on their own computers. I understand it is for the school district's own protection. Meanwhile for me, if I want to access a site that I might want to use to supplement my teaching, most of the time it is blocked due to the words games or tournament. My only recourse is to petition the technology department to be allowed access to the site. I have to fill out a form stating the reason I need access to this particular site. It is time consuming and often frustrating. Most of the time I do research at home first to see what sites will actually be beneficial.

Janine,
Our district uses Barracuda web filter. Prior to this year, the only way to access a blocked site was to send an email to the Tech Director and have them review the site and remove the block. This never happened as fast as you wanted it to, and didn't always resolve the whole problem with the site.
Recently, the Tech dept. in our district opened up teachers' accounts to access blocked sites with a password. The tech department knows instantly that it's a teacher accessing blocked sites and not students, and you get instant access to most site you need to research what you a looking for. Possibly this is in the future in your district?
Good Luck!

WOW! That would be great if our district would do that. This year they added BArracuda, but even if it is a teacher, they are still blocking us. It is very frustrating. What school district are you in?