Do you know what your child is looking at?

Do you think about this? 

When my children come home the first week of school and hand me the computer permission sheet to read and sign.  I have to admit that I really have never read it in its entirety.  I never thought about how much work goes into protecting or children on the Internet. Our children/students are told what to do and what not to do on the computers. I never realized that as they get older they are taught what web sites are good and which ones are bad to use.  It is important that students are taught, if not already, to use a criteria for evaluating web pages.  This will come in very handy to learn as they will have to do more papers.  If the students are using web sites in there papers they need to know that the site they are using is creditable and the truth. One of the readings we did was the "Five criteria for evaluation Web pages" this was a great chart to us when viewing a web page.   It tells you why you need to evaluate that certain criteria and then gives you example questions that you need to ask yourself to make sure the web page meets the requirements. Students need to be able to critically evaluate information; this is very important skill to have in this information era. "The acquisition of digital literacy skills is dependent up in the student's ability to find information, determine its usefulness and accuracy."(Classroom Connect, Dec98/Jan99)  I will start using this chart when I am looking at a web page.


Another very important part of using the Internet is the safety.  Students need to be taught all the wrong things that can happen on the Internet.  They need to be taught computer netiquette, how to surf the Internet correctly, the rules of e-mail, and the dangers of chat rooms (the good ones to).  I know teachers do teach this to their students as they get in the older grades but parents need to also do their part in tell their children about the good and bad of the Internet. 


With the world that we will soon be submersed into one day, students need to be very computer savvy.  Children need to be on their toes when it comes to all the problems and bad things that can happen on the Internet.  I know that I teach my children what I know about the Internet, in hopes that they will not run into any problems.  As a future teacher I will also do my best to educate my students on Internet safety and how to evaluate a website.