Schools across the United States are beginning to incorporate computers into the daily classroom life more and more. A small school in Bloomfield, Connecticut recently purchased a laptop for every kid. $2.5 million was spent outfitting the school for the Internet age. But not every school is so fortunate, nor does access to the Internet mean Internet proficiency. Schools run into problems attempting to find enough technical support once they have computers, getting support from and educating parents, making sure students are provided with a safe Internet experience, and then deciding what to teach.
Support

Parents

Safety

Curriculum

Finding Technical Support
Unfortunately, just buying computers isn't enough. Because a computer requires constant upkeep, schools have found that a major portion of their budget for technology must be spent on support personnel. If schools don't take the cost of technical support into account, the teachers often end up wasting precious class time attempting to fix problems. Many schools say they must rely on the community, students, and faculty to be their technical support. Unfortunately, it can be very difficult to raise money for on-going costs such as support, whereas donations for equipment are much more readily available. If possible, though, the National School Board Association recommends that at least 30% of the technology budget should be dedicated to support costs and staff training.


Educating Parents about Internet Risks
Because many parents today have had even less exposure to the Internet than their children have, they aren't educated about the risks. Some parents have never browsed the web themselves, and believe that the Internet contains only pornography or other material that is inappropriate for children. Conversely, some parents aren't aware that children do need to be protected from certain sites. Therefore, the schools are burdened with the task of not only educating kids about Internet safety, but also the parents. This added obstacle often hinders a school's ability to get connected. Either the school will foresee conflicts with parents and not want to get involved, or the school may attempt to educate parents, but not have enough resources.
  • The GetNetWise organization helps educate parents and teachers about the risks kids may face online.


  • Another web site helping parents to understand more about Internet Safety is NetParents.
Providing a Safe Internet Experience
Since most parents wish to restrict their child's access to acceptable Internet sites, the school must respect these concerns and implement some kind of solution. Schools then have yet another responsibility, which is to find a way to monitor the kind of content that students are viewing. Fortunately, there are many new resources available to teachers and administrators that are helping to combat this problem. Both Microsoft and Netscape currently offer, or will be in the near future offering, a kind of filter that teachers and parents can access to keep kids from browsing through certain types of sites. In addition, Yahoo, Excite, and Lycos are offering search engines designed to protect kids. Also, President Clinton and Vice President Gore are dedicated to providing a more "Family Friendly" Internet by implementing laws against the transmission of child pornography and other illegal content, encouraging that new filtering technology be readily available, requiring sites to take special measures when collecting information from kids, and more.
Creating an Internet Curriculum
Although the number of ways that technology can be incorporated into a classroom is seemingly infinite, many methods are still not used. Because the Internet is a relatively new resource, teachers don't yet have well-established curriculum that teach about technology, or even utilize technology to teach other subjects. Therefore most attempts to augment a lesson with web browsing, for instance, are still experimental, and some teachers aren't in a position to take such a risk. However, each day more and more "technology experiments" are becoming tried-and-true methods. There are many resources available now where teachers can find free educational software, or just information on how to expand any subject to include technology.
References