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Child Safety and Web Publishing Policy - Details
E-mail contacts:
On the positive side:
- Children get feedback on their work.
- Pupils gain insights into world cultures.
- Pen friendships are formed between children worldwide.
- E-mail projects can lead to greater participation and sharing of ideas.
On the negative:
- On the Internet no-one knows your gender, age, colour and so on. Strangers,
at times pretending to be someone else, can communicate with children, so it is
important that children realise that 11 year-old Cindy in Rhode Island may
actually be 41 year-old Cecil on Island Road. This kind of problem is more
common in "chat" situations, but it is also a possibility with
e-mail.
- Offensive comments. All the potential reinforcement that a child can
receive from having his/her work on the Internet can be ruined by one nasty
message from some unfeeling and hurtful person.
- Online gangs. These are not much known here in Ireland as yet, but are
causing a lot of concern for many parents in America. Online gangs tend to be
initiated by older teenagers, who are idolised by their younger recruits. The
agenda may be political or pseudo-religious, but the dangers are similar to
other cults and may prove to be even more insidious.
- Personal information. Naïve young users of e-mail have been known to
give out a lot of personal information and in some cases even a parent's credit
card details.
Precautions:
- Most people would agree that the first line of defense is supervision. The
most reliable precaution, especially for primary schools and those new to
e-mail, is to have a strict rule that every e-mail sent or received on a school
machine must be read by a teacher. ***Providing separate e-mail addresses for
each child has an immediate appeal but can lead to nightmares for
administration as well as security. The NCTE does not recommend this
option.
- The second line of defense, and a close second at that, is education. All
children using e-mail should become well aware of the dangers involved in
e-mail communication. The resources pages suggest several resources to help
with this process.
- Here is a hint that can be an administrative help as well as aiding pupil
safety when a lot of e-mail is used. Web sites often have a link for people to
click on in order to send a message. The HTML code for this will look something
like this: <a href="mailto:ourschool@eircom.net">.
Now, suppose Mrs. McGill is currently running a project with her class about
"Christmas around the world". She might edit that line to read
<a href="mailto:ourschool.@eircom.net?subject=Mrs McGill Christmas
project"> click here</a>. If this syntax is used, Mrs
McGill Christmas project will appear in the Subject line of any e-mail
message, making it easy to pick out when scanning incoming mail.
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