Wormbog

This time of year I start getting questions from parents of new students about our Internet filtering here at DCHS and how they can filter the Internet at home.  I blogged about our filtering solution at DCHS here. I believe that all parents should take great care at home to limit access to the Internet.

For children who are in elementary school white lists are the best solution.  A white list denies access to all sites that are not specifically allowed.  This solution works well for younger kids because there is a limited number of sites that they need to get to.

As students get older they need to get to a larger number of sites for school work.  As students are first learning to use the Internet for research at home parents should be online with their children.  Continue to give them access to the sites they need through white lists and spend time with them online through a parents account that does not have the white list restrictions.  This is a critical teaching opportunity for parents and important in helping kids to have a healthy understanding of the benefits and pitfalls of the Internet.

There will come a point in middle school or high school when white lists and sitting down with Mom or Dad are not workable.  This is the point at which internet filtering becomes important (although I would argue that it should always be present in the home).  I have been pleased with the filtering options from OpenDNS.  This service is free to start and offers some additional services for a fee.  Because of the way it is setup it filters all internet access from all devices in a household.  This allows parents to filter computers, games systems and iPods.  Most software solutions are only filtering the computer.  Here is a link to a PDF flyer from OpenDNS about filtering at home.

It is critical that students are educated about the Internet at home and that parents take an active role in the online activities of their kids.  OpenDNS is a good tool to help parents keep students safe online.