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Technology in the Classroom can open many minds using interesting computer lesson plans.

Filtering out Adult Web Sites in the Classroom Technology

With technology in the classroom, it’s becoming more obvious that there is no single method to protect children from being exposed to legal, adult pornography on the Internet. Although “parental control” systems, like those offered from America Online are effective, they cannot guarantee to block out everything now or in the future. Computer lesson plans or online research could all lead to inappropriate sites if not monitored closely by teachers. Even with close supervision, unwanted materials may still find their way into school on-line. That just seems to be the price for having technology in the classroom.

Teachers are screening kids from adult sites in a number of different ways and most don’t rely on “parental control” systems. One way to make technology in the classroom work is to give students the illusion of being online, when they aren’t. When having kids conduct research on the Internet, some teachers spend time the day before finding suitable research sites and saving them to the computer. They then enable students to only surf to those well-chosen sites. On-line access can also be restricted for those following computer lesson plans.

According to experts, the challenge of protecting the rights of children while also protecting the rights of individuals to access legal, adult pornography, is only going to become more difficult. With over 100,000 current adult pornography web sites worldwide, the gap between the explosive nature of Internet growth and the technology designed to filter sites and protect children is steadily increasing. One teaching strategy to protect children when using technology in the classroom is to teach children how to make choices once they log on and begin to surf the web. Although this won’t protect their innocent eyes, it might keep them on the right path – to fully research a paper or complete their computer lesson plans. In the meantime, parents and educators and hopeful that advanced filtering technology will make this topic much less of an issue.