The Internet is a great place for many reasons, but also offers challenges in keeping our children safe.
The Internet is a powerful tool for homeschoolers. At the touch of a button, you can gather information for a research project, view pictures of far-away places, generate math worksheets, play educational games, and discover new lesson plans. However, using the Internet also means learning Internet safety and etiquette.
Teaching our children how to protect themselves and stay safe in the world is a big issue. Nowhere is that more apparent than in cyber-space. Children learn computer skills at a very early age, showing an ability to cruise around the on-line world with ease by the time they are ready for formal schooling.
We spend time teaching our children to say "please" and "thank you". We train them at a young age not to talk to strangers. We need to spend the same amount of effort helping them learn the rules and procedures for life on the Internet, as well.
There are wonderful websites that can become helpful tools for this very thing.
CyberSmart!, www.cybersmartcurriculum.org/curr_over/, offers a free online curriculum for grades Kindegarten -8th. The lesson plans cover 5 "SMART" categories:
- S - safety
- M - manners
- A - advertising
- R - research
- T - technology
Each lesson stands on its own, making it easy to implement in any curriculum.
From the UK we have 2 related sites: ChildNet and Kidsmart. ChildNet International, www.childnet-int.org/default.aspx, in a non-profit organization focuing on safety for children on-line. There are some neat things to explore on this site, and parents will benefit from spending a little time exploring here. ChildNet has several projects, one of which is KidSmart, www.kidsmart.org.uk/default.aspxKidSmart offers sections for parents to learn more about how to keep kids safe with modern technology, lessons plans for teachers, and safety quizzes, games, and competitions for kids. At the time of this writing, this author has only begun to explore these two sites, but looks foward to taking a better look at them.
Safe Internet Surfing, www.safersurfers.org/lesson_plans_grades_3_12.htm, offers a free lesson plan suitable for grades 3-5, which can be adapted for use at home. Likewise, SafeKids.com, www.safekids.com/, contains a lot of useful information directed more at parents.
In short, there are many resources available for teaching children, and families, how to behave correctly and safetly on the internet.
