Another answer to keeping students safe is by using a safety policy. There is a safety policy in place for the Bartow County School system, where I work. Parents are required to sign stating they have read the policy, are aware of the consequences if their child doesn’t adhere to the policy and must indicate their chose of whether they give or deny permission for their child to be on the internet. The student must also read the policy and sign that they will adhere to the safety policy. The policy addresses netiquette, acceptable uses, internet safety, privacy, failure to comply, and permitted use. This helps student be aware of what is expected and steps they can take to stay safe.
An additional area that will help keep students safe is by using a filter. The Bartow County System has student and educator filters in place. It prevents most spam from entering adult email and filters students from accessing inappropriate sites. For example, as an educator, I can show a You-tube video to my classes but students cannot view a video on You-Tube by themselves due to ads and other available videos. They are allowed to view videos on http://www.teachertube.com/, http://www.schooltube.com/, or http://www.brainpop.com/ . The videos on teachertube and schooltube cannot be linked to You-tube. This filtering adds an additional safety net for our students.
The last area that can help keep students safe on the internet is their teacher’s awareness of technology that will help students stay safe. An educator could use Edmodo, Blackboard, a Weebly, or a blog that lists appropriate websites students can visit or have students use kid friendly search engines. There are numerous kid friendly search engines available for educators to use with students. A few of my favorites are: http://www.kidrex.org/, http://www.kidzsearch.com/, and http://www.ask.com/. Each of these sites filters out inappropriate content and allows students to use the internet for educational purposes in a safe manner.
Richardson (2010) emphasizes that schools are bound by the Child Internet Protection Act (CIPA) to filter content and that even with this in place inappropriate content can still get through firewalls. We, as educators, must talk with our students about what is appropriate and continually monitor students as we integrate additional collaborative technologies into our classrooms.
Useful internet safety websites for students:
http://ilearntechnology.com/?p=2941
I Learn Technology lists sixteen of the best internet safety sites for kids.
http://www.netsmartzkids.org/
Netsmartzkids offers curriculum and interactive games for teaching students internet safety. There are versions for younger and older students.
http://www.kgcs.k12.va.us/kges/isafe_resources_k_12.htm
This website offers a comprehensive listing of internet safety sites and activities.
http://www.digitalpassport.org/student/landingpage
Digital Passports offers videos and games to help students understand the importance of internet safety.
Richardson, W. (2010). Blogs, wikis, podcasts, and other powerful web tools for classrooms. (3rd. ed.) Thousand Oak, California: Corwin.