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| Image obtained from Childnet International (free download) |
Great Question from Mrs. Art Teacher:
When you take the kids to the lab to look for images how do you keep them from stumbling upon non school appropriate images? The one time I took my kids to find their own images using google search...my god what showed up made me think I was going to get fired!
Great question. Yes, anytime I am working with student and technology there is a lot of conversation that proceeds a trip to the lab. Our school computers are fairly blocked for inappropriate content. Because our school does this, I have little worry about what my students look at in class. I feel that I would never be held accountable for the images the kids are allowed to access because our school is trying hard to block what is inappropriate. However, some content does get through that my students should not be looking at it. I act out two skits whenever talking about this subject.
Skit one...
Mrs. Hahn has just asked me to look up images on the internet. OK... google... Type in Cats... enter. Wow, that is not what I was expecting! I'm just going to press the back button and figure out a different search word.
Skit two...
Mrs. Hahn has just asked me to look up images on the internet. OK... google... Type in Cats... enter. Wow, that is not what I was expecting! Hey, guys, come over... look at what just popped up! That's so funny! Hey, tap my bro next to you... totally funny footage! This is funny! Look at this!
I make a big deal in the second skit. I simply say, there is one action that I feel is a mature action and will NOT get you in trouble. The other reaction will warnt a little one on one conversation between you and I:) They always laugh because they know as well any anyone that this is exactly what kids/or adults do (both reactions).
I also make a point to say that this rule applies for other content in the art room too. In many of our art books there is nudity. We use National Geographics all the time for images. There are lot of things in those magazines that our young, Western eye is not used to seeing.
There are also many websites that can assist in with safety and the Internet such as safeteens.com, FBI- Kids Safety, Childnet International, NetSmartz (my personal favorite for young kids), and Internet Safty for Kids
Hope this helps when using technology in your classroom!
Whaoo I inspired a whole post ;) Seriously though thanks for the search engine ideas... I don't know if my district is not using strong enough filters or what but we still come across a ton of inappropriate images on a day to day basis. I have reached the point that when kids need an image I have them line up one by one and tell me what they want to search, then I type it into my laptop while it faces away from the kids, I check the images that pop up and then show them to the student's and allow them to choose one to print. Needless to say in a class of 36 that can take forever and not be great for my management ability. I'm also trying to find a way to have our tech person make it so students can only print from their computer after I have approved their print request from my computer. I'm not sure if a program like that exists already but if it dosen't someone should make one and make a lot of money from schools.
ReplyDeleteYou are so right! This is a difficult one. I do sensor as much as possible. But there is always something every few years that gets through. I almost feel guilty for the amount of sensorship I have to do, but in Western education it is the norm. Yet, many see worse on T.V. as a norm. Must really be confusing our kids and values. I, for one, cannot stand when they make cartoons with adult content (Family Guy.) I know a lot of people think I'm stuck up for it, but I don't think it's funny. Mainly because it is appealing to kids with the cartoon aspect. I won't even watch it. Okay now that I've went on a tangent! Great post!
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