Norris School District

About Your Kids' Computer Use & Internet Access -- @ home and school

By Norris HS Principal John Skretta

December 13, 2006

Students are huge consumers of the internet at both home and school.  Nationwide surveys indicate that parents are very concerned about internet safety and that their anxiety is only heightened by their belief that their kids are quite a bit more adept at using the internet than they are.  Regarding kids’ amazing aptitude with the web and their techno-oriented lifestyles, I would agree that kids of six years age on up seem to be more fluent with all sorts of digital technologies than their parents are.  As a parent of two elementary aged boys, I consider myself afflicted with the same troubling phenomenon – my kids seem to be able to log onto the Nickelodeon website and start playing “Avatar” or some other game quicker than I can say, “Did I give you permission to be on the computer?!”

 The amazing technology available to us can create a real conundrum for parents, who see the value the internet offers as a web portal to the world – but are also aware of the dangers and very real risks their children may be exposed to on the internet. 

 Our high school students who complete the network user agreement in the Norris student handbook are allowed to use computers and access the internet at school.  We value the use of the internet as a research tool that has proven highly effective across content areas and a wide variety of topics.  For many educators and many adults in their chosen professions, the internet has become an indispensable tool for learning.  Simultaneously, we have put some very solid restrictions in place that monitor and filter students’ computer use.  We have topical blocks that prevent students from accessing explicit sexual content and a whole range of other unsavory internet content, including gaming sites and online gambling.  We also have a dynamic content reader filter that automatically scans pages before presenting them to the viewer – thus allowing the school to block access to inappropriate content that may show up on a page that is otherwise not topically blocked.   

Despite our blocks, the occasional savvy student net-surfer with less-than-great intentions is able to get onto some inappropriate content. Fortunately, our teachers are equipped with a program that allows them to look at any student’s computer monitor via their own teacher monitor.  Knowing they’re being watched very closely at all times is a great deterrent to misuse of the technology.  We also do a weekly scan of pages accessed by users.  If we determine a student has violated the user agreement and engaged in inappropriate surfing for non-educational purposes, we revoke the student’s internet access for two to three weeks. 

 The many problems with “MySpace”

Many parents of our high schoolers have shared with me that their kids are using MySpace at home and that they have their own pages on this web site.  MySpace is blocked at school.  It cannot be accessed at Norris.  Most of the time, when MySpace is brought up to me as a conversation topic for parents, it is clear that parents are concerned about what their kids are doing on the site – and that they often only have a dim awareness of what that might be.  What follows is some information and a few recommendations. 

 Based on the information shared with me from parents and other educators about MySpace, the concerns are often warranted.  For the blissfully uninitiated, MySpace is an internet site that advertises itself as a “lifestyle portal” for social networking.  It has now eclipsed over 100 million member accounts and is the second most popular web property in the world – (Google is #1). For concerned parents of teenagers, the site – and all the attendant issues of internet use – pose a whole new array of parenting challenges.  Unfortunately, MySpace has frequently been exploited by teens as a forum where information is shared / conveyed that the parent would never allow their son or daughter to participate in through any other forum – whether that’s ‘old school’ snail mail, a text message, or a note passed in class that comes home in a backpack. 

 There are some inherently troubling aspects of the MySpace phenomenon. Given the gargantuan size of this website, MySpace has hired a team of employees whose job it is to manage investigations that involve misuse of the website or violations of the limited user agreement policies MySpace has. As you might imagine, this limited staff is woefully outmanned.  This is why I would describe MySpace as “The Wild West of the internet.”  MySpace reports that, as of 2006, over 60% of U.S. teenagers have posted a profile on a social networking site – MySpace or a similar one. It is important for parents to understand that the features of MySpace are attractive to teens for obvious reasons, and these same features include some risks which imply parents carefully monitor what their kids are up to: MySpace is a free website that does not individually verify users’ e-mail addresses or ages – and offers things like “invite features,” to join “friends” lists, e-mail centers, and blogs.  While it is not a lawless domain, there have been a plethora of documented instances where online predators have used or attempted to use MySpace and other social networking sites as terrain to stalk their victims.  Many reasonable adults suggest that the rise of ‘social networking’ sites that are highly popular with kids certainly bears some correlation to the fact that the FBI has tripled the number of arrests of child predators in the last five years. 

Some great software resources are out there to monitor your kids’ internet use or filter it. Such programs are often fairly flexible, allowing you to block or restrict by specific site, topic, or content.  These programs are readily available for purchase at consumer electronics stores or online.  You can even purchase products that will allow you to track your youth user’s web history and read their instant messages.  Fighting technology with technology is one way to approach the problem.  Another is to establish very specific limits on your kids’ internet use.  If your son or daughter violates your expectations at home regarding computer use or internet access, remember that these are privileges which you have endowed upon them.  Just as we do at school, it is possible for you to revoke those privileges for a specified period of time until your young person has re-established trust.   

Again, access to MySpace is entirely blocked at Norris.  As you might imagine, that simplifies the issue drastically for us.  However, this has not prevented problems associated with students’ MySpace web pages from occasionally manifesting themselves at school.  In the past two years, it has become frustratingly commonplace for us to find that some students have demonstrated poor judgment and used MySpace to share information about or promote illicit activities, or to engage in inappropriate postings that are taunting, insulting, harassing, or just plain profane – toward other students or adults.  These problems then turn up at school – hard copy printouts of pages show up – or conversations and conflicts that had their origin on MySpace end up spilling over into the classroom environment. The implications are clear – we need your help in monitoring MySpace at home.  If your son or daughter has a MySpace account, please routinely check the contents and verify the appropriateness and safety of the information he or she is sharing.