Web Safety Guidelines -
Browsing:
Browsing the World Wide Web is a common name for exploring information on that world-wide computer network commonly called the Internet. Terms like browsing and surfing have become so commonplace that many people now wrongly consider the WWW to be synonymous with the Internet but let's leave that argument for another day. The exploration of the web is normally done with a piece of software called a browser and the most popular examples are Netscape Navigator and Microsoft Internet Explorer although for some purposes simpler packages such as Opera can be very useful in schools. Let's start by accentuating the positive. This may seem strange, even perverse, in a discussion of dangers of Internet use but if we are not clear on why children should use the Internet we can solve all issues of danger by simply saying that they should not be allowed to use the 'net at all. But think what they would miss - the chance to... access rich educational and cultural resources (including text, sounds, pictures, and video) otherwise unavailable to most people obtain up-to-the-minute information improve their ability to understand and, crucially, evaluate information - a vital skill in a society where deceit is easier than ever. play fun and educational games learn research skills which will be invaluable for learning activities at any time in their future. It has been said that we should be preparing children for their future not our past. It's difficult to conceive of an effective way of doing that without the Internet and in particular the World Wide Web. So what is there to worry about? Well, there's... sites with sexually explicit images and text sites promoting hatred, bigotry, violence, drugs, cults sites which parody figures beloved by children - harmless fun for adults but they can be genuinely confusing and upsetting to children. inaccurate, misleading, and untrue information unrestricted marketing products of alcohol and tobacco unethical (to say the least) marketing that deceptively collects personal information from kids in order to sell products to them or their parents requests for personal information for contests, surveys, etc., that are used in unauthorized ways access to games with excessive violence and gender stereotypes We could go on but let's not! The best protection we can offer the children is self-protection. The first step must be to teach thema set of rules for staying safe and such a set has already been described in the section on AUP's. But after that what alse can a school do to protect its pupils? There are three main approaches: Filtering Software The purpose of this kind of software is to block "unsuitable" site from under-age users. There are many packages such as Net Nanny, Cyber Patrol etc. and they all work in somewhat different ways so a detailed account of each would be well beyond the scope of this article. If you want to know more about a particular package, try a search on the 'net. Some packs block a list of known sites chosen by the designers and which may be extended by the user. Others use a sort of voluntary coding system observed by some sites and the latest versions of browsers have some of this kind of function built in. Others use the fact that most web-sites have key words built in to facilitate those doing a search and will block those using words which suggest "adult" content. There have even been attempts to measure the colors appearing in the graphics on a site to exclude those with a high percentage of flesh tones. If you are going to use on of these packages it is important to know at least the basics of how they work. Will it block the child from sites which are desirable? The cliched example is the child who can't find a recipe for breast of chicken because he's asked for a "rude" word. More worrying might be a package which blocks a list of sites but will not give out that list. Are some sites being blocked because of the political biases of the designer? Will it block access to sites which have genuinely artistic representation of nudity while allowing one which has a graphic depiction of Santa Claus as a victim of a mad axe murderer? Which image is likely to have a more disturbing effect on a child? This is not to say that filtering software is not a good idea. If properly set up it may well be a useful tool but unfortunately people are inclined to think that once it's installed the problems of unsuitable web sites are over. They are not! Off-line Browsing This term refers to using at an browser to look at files which you have stored locally, not on the Internet. The material will probably have been initially sourced from the Internet and you might have it on the hard disk of a particular computer or you may have a computer network in the school with this material held on one machine. The most typical way of obtaining the material is by downloading it from the 'net with software like WebWhacker, or perhaps you were involved in the Bocom Edcast project which allowed you to receive the files by TV broadcast or you might have received it as a sample on CD-ROM from the NCTE or other source. Once it is properly set up on your computer, the use of the browser is only marginally different from on the Internet. This system has the great advantage that you can have your children study some material knowing that you know exactly what is available and that they cannot get at anything unsuitable. . The downside is that they don't have access to the full wealth of the WWW and will not be seeing the up-to-date version of a site which is frequently updated. The upside is that there are many very valuable resources on the Internet which are rarely updated because they rarely need to be and there's the bonus of having fast access and no phone bills. Having a large selection of these sites available to you locally could well provide all the Web activities you have time for in perfect safety. . Teacher supervision This is probably the ultimate safety device. If children know the rules and know that there are realistic sanctions for breaking them and the monitor is constantly within view of the teacher, an awful lot of concerns can be eliminated. It is a reasonable expectation that primary school children are never left alone with Internet access and it's a small step from this to ensuring supervision. This is a point which is well worth considering in designing a school computer lab. Labs are very often designed with the back of the monitor to the teacher with the intention that children will look over the top at a blackboard or screen but this has a major disadvantage for the teacher who cannot see what is on the monitors. This is an issue that goes beyond safety because when a teacher is trying to introduce a group to a piece of software it can be enormously helpful to be able to see when they are all at the same screen. As with so many of these questions the best solution is specific to the individual school. The essential thing is examine the issues and discuss them as a staff until a point is reached where everyone has the confidence to use the technology in a way that suits.