RSSShould kids be taught 'Internet safety' in schools?
By Jacqueline Emigh | Published April 9, 2008, 9:00 AM
Can kids be taught to avoid dangers on the Internet while also taking full advantage of all of the good things available online? The State of Virginia, for one, thinks that classroom instruction will work.
In one of the first efforts of its kind in the US, Virginia has launched a program for "Internet safety" in schools.
"Today's student will be the first generation to use the Internet for their entire lives. This unprecedented access to resouces will enhance their learning, research, communications, explorations for new ideas, and expressions of creativity. [But] unfortunately, this remarkable resource has [also] become susceptible to abuse that often targets young people," according to the new program's implementation guidelines.
In a recent presentation at a suburban high school in Virginia, Gene Fishel, the state's assistant attorney general, demonstrated to parents the kinds of real life hazards kids can sometimes face on the Web.
Fishel showed a profile on a social networking site of a supposed 15-year-old girl who says that she's interested in meeting new people, and that she "likes boys." Yet the actual person behind the profile turns out to be a 31-year-old man who's now serving a 45-year prison term for sexually abusing 11 children he met on the Internet.
Virginia's new Internet safety program, which took effect this school year, is based on legislation first passed by the 2006 General Assembly and then signed by Virginia Governor Tim Kaine.
The new law adds a requirement that "acceptable Internet use" policies already developed by division school superintendents must now include a component on Internet safety for students, created "in alignment with guidelines" set by the state's superintendent of public instruction. Virginia's Department of Education then reviews the policies for compliance.
But Virginia's new "acceptable Internet use" policies are also required to keep up with current state and federal legislation, which might at any time add new stipulations mandating filtering technologies or banning certain kinds of Web sites from access in schools, for instance.
Will some kids try to circumvent filtering software, if it's dictated by the powers that be? Undoubtedly.
Will they laugh at "Internet safety" training, just as previous generations have always jeered at "health education"? Maybe. But now it's the law -- in Virginia classrooms, anyway. And even in Virginia, kids can still do whatever they want on their PCs at home without parental supervision.
Meanwhile, is it possible that this new program might actually help some kids steer clear of crime on the Internet?
On its Web site, Virginia's Office of Educational Technology offers free downloadable materials around the "Internet safety" program that include current guidelines and other resources, recent surveys about Internet safety, and a handbook on acceptable use.
Guidelines are provided in a number of areas, including: Legislation; Issues School Divisions Must Address; What Students Need to Know; and What Parents, Grandparents, and Caregivers Need to Know.
"The critical-thinking skills students learn in the classroom, library, and lab should be applied to Internet resources and Web searching," according to one of the guidelines in What Students Need to Know.
"Students need to know what to do and who to ask for help when they encounter a person or site on the Internet that is offensive or threatening to them," according to another guideline.
The Office of Educational Technology site also offers links to tools from NetSmartz and iSAFE Inc. that school administrators and teachers can use in putting the guidelines to work in the classroom.
The NetSmartz activities, for example, include "age appropriate" role plays, writing activities, and art projects that can be done by kids either individually or in groups.
NEW SCHOOL SAFETY REPORT PAINTS GRIM PICTURE OF SAFETY IN AMERICAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS
A new report entitled “The State of School Safety in American Schools” speaks of sexual assault, violent cliques and violent parents as commonplace in suburban, urban and rural schools nationwide.
The report was developed by the SERAPH Research team of SERAPH.net a group composed of educators and crime researchers. The team used interviews with 1,520 educators, 925 law enforcement officials and numerous scientific studies to create a detailed assessment of problems facing American schools.
“In 2000,” states research team leader Dale Yeager, “The United States Human Rights Projects' - National Campaign to Fight for Children asked SERAPH to create a detailed report on school safety for select members of the U.S. Congress. Because of the misconceptions about school safety by the public and many legislators we felt that releasing this year’s report to the public would assist in educating people about the problem.”
The report is available online at http://www.seraph.net/do...hoolSafetyInAmerica.pdf
The report covers many areas not traditional discussed in school safety research such as: Young Children and Aggression, Educational Philosophies and Student Aggression, Health Issues and School Safety, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Piercing and Tattoos, Girl Aggression, Sexism and School Safety, Youth on Youth Sex Aggression
“The issue of school safety affects everyone in society. Juvenile crime, domestic violence, poverty are all tied to school safety issues. The report will provide factual information to the public so that they can understand the complexity of the problem and provide information to legislators so that they can assist schools in preventing and managing school safety issues.”
Score: 0
|By who's standards will internet safety be governed?
It's is like having your kids in a day care. Who's teaching them who's values.
Get the internet out of the schools. Let the kids use their own personal computers at home to browse their MySpace or FaceBook or what ever. Leave the teaching to the parents.
Bad enough teachers complain that students aren't being taught good enough they now have to teach them the morals of Internet Safety!!!
WE THE PEOPLE, Need to get an intelligent life with some common sense.
Score: 0
|Good idea, although some kids could probably teach their parents and teachers a thing or two as well.
Score: 0
|Jesus, this is too much. Why can't the parents just start teaching common senses to their children?
Score: 0
|Because they don't have any themselves.
Score: 0
|Bill Cosby, in his stand-up in the 60's, use to talked about kids being brain-dead because of the stupid things they do.
Score: 0
|Yeah...blame it on the kids.
That'll work.
Score: 0
|Trouble is when you tell kids not to do something it's the first thing they want to run and do.
Score: 0
|basic webternet skills should be taught in line with basic life skills,,, like home ec and money managment.....i can keep going
Score: 0
|Anything that can be taught in schools involving a computer is good IMO. I don't think parents should entirely leave it to the schools to teach internet safety however.
Score: 0
|Yes, I think it needs to be taught as well.
Like everything else in the public school system, it will not be perfect, but I think it certainly will not hurt things, and can only help things.
Score: 0
|To Tangoero-
I respect what you are trying to do but I find that the answer is not with this headline which is misleading but with what you are doing- Teaching adults on how to monitor and talk with their kids - talking to kids on the bad things on the net or avoiding the scams on how how to make a couple thousand selling credit cards. As far as Monitoring software, I would say that it probably never achieve the level of accuracy needed to be effective. So, the best approach is the one you are taking and that is talking to parents to have these type of conversations with their kids. Ultimately, it is up to the parents to instill the values in their kids and hope for the best.
As far as keystroke or other monitoring software, I am a little uneasy about these new technologies and might lead to kids reacting negatively and choosing a opposite path in life than a parents hopes they choose. Also, from what I have seen, these programs are somewhat flawed by the inability to distinguish good sites from bad at the grey areas. But, at the end of the day, a small minority will always be swayed by the lure of sex or money and be sucked into the inner world of the web despite the best efforts of the parents.
I wish you the best in your efforts and hope you can reach the parents.
Score: 0
|I am the CEO of WiHood, a virtual desktop service for children that also protects children while they surf. We are working with the teachers in schools in Oslo, Norway and NYC. The teachers don't have the time (like the parents) to stay updated with what potential harmful people and methods exist on the internet.
Our WiHood presentation on "Protecting Children on the Internet" is found to be priceless because teachers and parents want to be given the answers. The answer is communicate with your child even if you don't understand the internet, you do understand how to influence your child's privacy on the internet and the use of very good technology that provides that extra help.
This is a global parental and child problem. The schools are trying and we are trying to help them!
http://www.WiHood.com
Score: 0
|Maybe ...
A better idea would be for a resource made available on the internet for everyone to access.
It could be flash based, and cover everything deemed common sense for everyone else. It wouldn't be too long but would be humorous, informative and hopefully free. This would never go out of date and include new scams. It could be government funded of by the banks and people getting defrauded. It could be linked by businesses to provide a verification code when completed to establish if a user has completed the test and has enough common sense to actually complete on-line banking safely.
Expect it not to appear in a web browser soon.
Score: 0
|A better idea would be for a resource made available on the internet for everyone to access.
You mean like google?
http://www.google.com/se...al&client=firefox-a
Sorry, couldn't resist. The information is out there. Unfortunately, most parents think the responsibility for this lies with the teachers or the government. ...or they simply pull the wool a little further down over their eyes and look shocked when they hear the Internet isn't safe.
Score: 0
|Its like the report, reported in betanews recently to the UK government regarding new recommendations.
The banks have had long enough to think about tackling this and yet what are they doing to inform users ... very little. Why not have a official site backed by the authorities dedicated to advice regarding this matter.
Solving online fraud with a website resource ... Hardly rocket science.
Score: 0
|Why not have a official site backed by the authorities dedicated to advice regarding this matter.
Who determines the advice they give? What set of "morals" or "values" do we base it on?
No, sorry. Schools doing it goes against my grain enough as it is, the Government doing it is absolutely nuts. (IMHO)
Score: 0
|The basics wouldn't hurt.
IE: Don't open unknown attachments, this what phishing looks like, etc. Stuff that wouldn't push government pushed values or morals but would teach them internet basics.
I'd expect it to be no different than teaching basic math or english. Kind of like that 4 week class on "Quattro Pro" or "Pascal" we had back in the day. heh
I'd guess that 95% of parents don't know this stuff themselves.
Anything more advanced than that though isn't their job or their business.
Score: 0
|I would normally agree with you in areas such as this. There is a point where this could be a bad thing, but like fewt said, the basics wouldn't hurt.
Wow, agreeing with fewt and disagreeing with PC_Tool in one post. That's rare for me :D
Score: 0
|Whats interesting about your comment is that PC_Tool and I agree a lot more than we disagree.
Sucka.
heh :-D
Score: 0
|Who determines the advice they give? What set of "morals" or "values" do we base it on?
A consensus of expects in their field.
"No, sorry. Schools doing it goes against my grain enough as it is, the Government doing it is absolutely nuts."
Anyone could do it !! All it needs is funds and a big rubber stamp to say its legit and the advice herein is worth reading or your account will be emptied or you might get scammed.
To be honest, I dont need anyone to tell me that email I just got from someone who doesn't know my name is more interested in the details im not going to send him for that $4,680,458 dollars. Neither do I anticipate cashing that huge lottery I didn't enter from I county I don't live in. Trouble is the some people will click on that paypal link and verify their account, or login to check a bogus auction from an email from ebay.imathief.com
I agree its a not a thing for schools. Parents need to take the initiative, but where do they start? If they cant even understand basic security measures, they need guidance ...
Score: 0
|A consensus of expects in their field.
...and the option for those who do not agree with those values/morals? What? Tyranny?
If they cant even understand basic security measures, they need guidance ...
The pamphlets sent home from school are guidance, are they not? The PSAs? The advertisements? The newspaper articles?
No, the only way you'll get these parents to take responsibility is by force. Not by forcing them to attend classes and submit to your "guidance", but by making them 100% responsible for their failures. Not allowing them to blame the ISP, the school, the government, or anyone else for their complete failure to be involved in their childrens' lives.
Score: 0
|Sucka.
Fewt: The BBS writing, bling-blingin'est, homeboy you'll ever meet...
Excuse my while I descend to the floor in uncontrollable fits of laughter. ;)
Score: 0
|IE: Don't open unknown attachments, this what phishing looks like, etc.
I'd guess that 95% of parents don't know this stuff themselves.
...and what makes this subject matter anything other than common knowledge nowadays?
No, seriously. Why don't they know these things? The information is out there. It's damned near everywhere. I know for a fact our local paper has published stories on internet safety *at least* a dozen times since the 1980's, if not more.
It's not that they don't have the resources, guidance, or knowledge of where to find the resources and guidance. It's that they simply are not motivated to give a s***. Sorry, that's blunt, but it's true.
We need to start making them responsible for their complete lack of responsibility. Karma sucks.
Score: 0
|I actualy am a teacher (children in the ages of 10 - 11) in the Netherlands and I do teach them how to safely use the internet (for the Dutch readers: http://www.iksurfveilig.nl/)
I can tell that it works, children often have no idea about the amount of information about them on the internet, I try to make them aware of that. I also think children need to be warned about the dangers of chat programs and social networking sites.
Score: 0
|"Should kids be taught 'Internet safety' in schools?"
Yes.
I.T. teachers ought to be taught for a minimum of a week a year about the newest and best ways of coping with problems in the I.T. field, which they can then teach the kids.
It should be part of their job to turn up and listen to the seminars.
Score: 0
|It does need to be taught, and as mentioned here, you can't count on parents to teach the kids. Too many parents are not competent to teach the subject, or like with so many other issues they fail to get across to kids, just don't take the time and effort to do so. They tend to see the computer, much as they have seen television for so many years...as an electronic babysitter.
If schools are going to teach this, at the very least, it should be taught by teachers who are trained to convey the lessons in a competent manner. Train the teachers, first.
Score: 0
|All you can do is try to teach values. Otherwise they'll go where they want to anyhow and they'll figure out how since they're really bright and inquisitive which gives them an advantage over most adults.
My only fear is that the values taught are mixed in with outdated dogmatic superstitions. I think kids should be allowed to make up their own minds when possible (meaning the end result will not hurt them).
Score: 0
|Values are merely good intentions.
Without the knowledge of what to do (and what not to do...like posting real names, addresses, names of places or locations you frequent, etc), values are meaningless.
"Yeah, sure, she was a great kid, but he read online where she went to school, found a picture of her on her myspace page, and that was it. He grabbed her after school and that was the last anyone saw of her alive."
Her values aren't to blame here, are they?
Score: 0
|"Values"? Values are worthless because they are subjective and become irrelevant. If today you think that kicking someone in the butt is OK, well then your "values" tell you that today it's ok.
Morals on the other hand are based on absolutes, what is wrong today is wrong tomorrow and so on.
But in this case, what needs to be taught is common sense. Parents should also be monitoring their childrens online behavior because even if you teach a child that posting their real name or real photo is bad and here's a list of things that can happen. They will most likely dismiss it and say "That won't happen to me." Just look at how many people drink and drive each day. And that includes "adults".
Score: 0
|Yes, she shouldn't have even been associating with someone like that. Granted she might have done nothing to instigate the abduction in your scenario. However he could have picked any kid coming out of the school at that point then. Usually any predator online that acts has been provoked in some way by the victim, which is a sad but true fact. Instilling proper values in kids will tell them to avoid such people all together and not to talk to strangers, and just stick with a circle of known friends online.
Score: 0
|Morals are based on outdated religious dogma usually. That's why I prefer the term values. Either way both will be taught and enforced by the parent generally.
Also morals vary too and are usually agreed upon by the local community.
Score: 0
|Well maybe those teachers need to be taught too. You can't leave it up to the parents because they probably don't know either.
Score: 0
|Then the parents need to educate themselves. It is the parents responsibility for their children.
Score: 0
|How can adults begin to legislate items like this when teachers themselves are beyond lost when it comes to basic security principals?
Score: 0
|