| Web Safety Guidelines - | ||
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| Web Site Content: | ||
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All the material which might be placed on a school web-site including text, images and perhaps even sound and video.
There has been an exponential increase in the number of Irish schools with web-sites and it continues to grow. For a variety of reasons (some better than others) schools now want to have a web-site. Some of the better reasons are: The opportunities for educational benefit and general self-esteem of the whole school community are huge and it would be terribly sad if any school was frightened off the whole idea by some recent press reports. There are dangers and sometimes they are dangers that we would not immediately consider but they can be handled and the benefits far outweigh them. It hardly need be said that the school must take responsibility for all content on its web-site so let's consider each type of content and look for the pitfalls which may be concealed therein: Images of the children: On one level it seems almost perverse to have a school web-site with no children appearing. On many occasions family members living abroad can take great comfort from seeing how a niece, grandson or whatever is looking. Anyway how better to show the general ambience of a school than with images of the cheery faces of the inhabitants? However... Many schools in many countries will not allow the display of any photo of any child. The fears which lie behind such extreme measures are varied; It has been suggested that such pictures might be digitally blended with child pornography to put the child's face on the body of another. It's difficult to see what benefit a pornographer could hope to gain by such a practice and anyway the same could be achieved using an image from the local newspaper and a cheap scanner so this danger should not be taken too seriously. The fear that a paedophile may target a child seen on a site and abduct him or her. This concern is certainly better grounded but it should be kept in perspective. All recent figures suggest that "stranger danger", while it certainly exists, represents only a tiny proportion of the threat of abuse to children. On the other hand, sensible precautions should be taken. Pictures of individual children should be used only very sparingly and should never have any personal details attached. Providing a young child's photo, alongside their "News" including full name and address, names of siblings, pets etc. is asking for trouble. With that kind of information available an undesirable is extremely well equipped to convince the child that he's a friend of the family come to collect him/her. Safety of children where custody is disputed. A parent, in some extreme cases may not be supposed to know where the child is. If he/she knows the general area and tries browsing school web-sites in that locale well... Admittedly, this is a very minor danger but the parent who has custody in such circumstances would have obvious rights to privacy which must be respected. Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to have an image on display must be left to the parent. Where there is a problem, a little imagination can go a long way. If a photo is not to be used perhaps the child can draw a self-portrait or even write a pen-picture to fill the gap. Text composed by the child. This content is less problematic but sensitivity is still needed. Is the child exposing something of family life which the rest of the family would prefer to keep private. Sometimes they will not be worried about this being seen by a teacher who does not know the background but it might be very embarassing to have it seen by Auntie Maggie in Philadelphia. If in any doubt, have it "proof-read" by the parents first. Some parents will also have concerns about having Johnny's work displayed next to Mary's where comparisons may be made. In some ways, there is no material difference between this and displaying work in the school but it must be remembered that this is a great deal more public than a display in the classroom. Most parents will be delighted that the child's work is considered worthy of display but again sensitivity must be the watch-word. Other material There is little room for concern here. The sound of a few words spoken as gaeilge or in a local accent, or of the school choir at Christmas, such things enrich the Internet itself and can do a lot to provide a positive national image to the world. A final thought It should be clear that parents must be given some general opportunity to veto the display of material relating to their child on the Internet. There is a danger that many parents will be influenced by sensationalist reporting to be reluctant about giving their permission, particularly if they lack a clear idea of what a school web-site is. Indeed, all of these precautions become very abstract and meaningless unless the school's web-site is a real thing to the wider community. It should be remembered that the majority of families still do not have internet access at home. Some thought should be given to ways in which parents, and, indeed pupils can get to see the school site. For example there might be a copy of the site kept on a computer in the office where parensts could call in to be shown it by the proud pupil whose work has been displayed. The exact way in which access is provided will be dictated by individual school circumstances and the foregoing is just one idea but it is important that access be provided. | ||
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