President Clinton recently announced his strategy for making the Internet
child-safe and family-friendly. Read the details of his plan-and check
out a handful of Web sites that'll help you provide a safe Internet experience
for your students.
On July 16, President Clinton announced a strategy for making the Internet
"family-friendly." The
President's plan calls for a joint effort by government, industry,
parents, and teachers to ensure that "the Internet will be both safe for
our children and the greatest educational resource we have ever known."
"We all know and we've heard the horror stories about the inappropriate
material for children that can be found on the Internet," Clinton said
in his remarks. "But the computer industry is developing a whole toolbox
full of technologies that can do for the Internet what the V-chip will
do for television."
"I think it's fair to say that history will evaluate the Internet as
having sparked a revolution in information perhaps every bit as profound
as the printing press," Clinton said. "For today, at the click of a mouse,
children can tap into the resources of the Library of Congress or a great
museum, and they can communicate with classrooms around the world."
He cited NASA's Pathfinder Web site, which has had 27 million
hits since July 4, as one example of how the Internet can bring together
people.
Clinton announced that Netscape Communications has committed to add
family-friendly controls to the next release of its Internet browser.
Those controls, in the form of a special filtering technology known as
the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS), will allow parents
to choose from a variety of rating systems to block sites that are inappropriate
for children. Microsoft, producer of another popular browser, already
offers such options. Together, Microsoft and Netscape account for more
than 90 percent of the browser market.
Most commercial online services and Internet providers currently offer
customers filtering software that enables parents to block out objectionable
material; and many of them offer the software for free.
Clinton also announced that many of the online search engine companies-including
Yahoo, Excite, and Lycos-have agreed to make it easy for Web site developers
to rate their sites appropriately. As new sites apply to be part of those
directories, they will be asked to label any material that might be objectionable.
"I want to thank Yahoo, Excite, and Lycos for this important commitment,"
Clinton said. "You're helping greatly to assure that self-labeling will
become standard practice. And that must be our objective."
"The Internet community must work to make these labels as common as
food safety labels are today," Clinton concluded.
Related Sites
Want to learn more about the Internet safety issue? Following are a handful
of sites that offer valuable information about Internet safety. Each site's
content is briefly described.
Gopher
Q&A from ERIC Answers to commonly asked primary and secondary school
Internet user questions. This site is produced by the Internet School
Networking group in the User Services Area of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF). Topics covered include Internet safety (question
#6).
Students
on the Internet: Can You Ensure Appropriate Access? This story from
the April 1996 issue of The School Administrator, published by
the American Association of School Administrators, looks closely at
the cyberporn debate, acceptable use policies (AUPs), and filtering
devices.
Creating
Board Policies for Student Use of the Internet Acceptable use policies
help define acceptable behaviors by student and staff users of information
systems, while Board policies take the matter much farther. "The vaguer
the rules in any particular district, the greater the risk that individuals
will be caught up in storms of protest or moral dilemmas," says Jamieson
McKenzie, editor of FromNowOn.Org, The Educational Technology
Journal. McKenzie's article details some of the specific questions that
school boards should address.
Bellingham (Washington)
Public Schools Click on "Board Policies" to learn more about this
school district's Internet Policy. The site includes rules for student
and curriculum use, and permission forms.
Surfing
Safely on the Internet: Lesson Plan The Internet can be a safe place
for children to discover the world around them and to develop researching
and critical thinking skills-if you teach them how to use it appropriately.
This excellent lesson plan from an experienced Internet teacher/user
teaches children the things they need to know before they're allowed
to search on their own, including safety rules, how to use a search
engine (and which search engines to use), and how to navigate on the
Internet. Students produce a video of what they learned.
Child
Safety on the Internet This site is full of connections for families
and educators interested in learning more about Internet safety issues.
Acceptable
Use Policies This Gopher Menu offers reports on AUPs in Texas, Boulder,
Pittsburgh, and more.
Child
Safety on the Information Highway Rules for child safety on the
Internet published by the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children. These rules are geared for parents/the home but can be easily
adapted for schools by teachers.
