Internet Lesson 7

I reviewed Net Nanny and The Internet Filter. I did not like either of them becuase of their limitations when it comes to learning and evaluating sites based on actual content and not the names of the pictures or the description of the site. As a technology teacher I am more for a proxy server that allows sites to be visited that are approved as opposed to randomly blocking sites that may or may not have appropriate content based on a program that searches out keywords, you might as well be using google images to put together a photography portfolio if you are going to be limited by Net Nanny. Net Nanny is also a Windows program that is compatible with IE 7 but says nothing about backwards compatibility. The Internet Filter keeps track of sites but does not evaluate them based on the user that is logged on the computer. I think that in the future computer companies will move more towards having controls built into the system that allows blocking and monitoring for children. People above the age of 14 should be able to self-monitor or face losing priveleges as we have implemented in our district as a precaution. We also lock the history up so that the student can go anywhere but then the history is analyzed against a series of filters that I have set up. These are checked nightly and students who are breaking the rules are simply not allowed to go on the interent anymore- it is very affective. For home use the best system I have seen is the MAC Childsafe program where you set allowed sites and it doesn't let kids use the links within the site to get to other sites. If appropriate boundaries are set then it is up to the teacher or parent to teach kids what to go on and how to appropriately use the internet, not a net nanny.