Virginia Schools Vigilant About Internet Safety
April 9, 2008 – 4:52 pm by
Glen
Good afternoon. It’s been pretty positive today on the blog. Kudos to me. Thank you. Seriously. Thank you very much. I appreciated the applauding and whistling. Truly. Thanks.
This week, there was an AP article about Virginia schools teaching internet safety classes. The article centered on an assistant attorney general delivering a web safety presentation at James River High School in Virginia. Students were warned about the dangers of sharing personal info on the web and about the permanence/long term consequences of information posted on the internet.
FYI, I also saw this story while watching the evening news here in Seattle.
Not sure why this became a sudden news story this week. NPR had a story on this back in September 2007. In fact, that story also featured Gene Fishel (the assistant attorney general from the AP article!) teaching students about the potential dangers of the internet. This is a case of SSDS (same story, different school). Must have been a real slow news day over at AP headquarters! CBS also did a similar story back in Sep. 07.
I’ll stop whining. Sorry.
The State of Virginia is VERY proactive with the education of internet safety. In 2006, the State of VA approved legislation to make internet safety lessons a mandatory course in schools. Internet safety has been incorporated into school curriculum. Currently, VA is the only state that necessitates that web safety to be taught in their schools. At all grade levels starting from kindergarten!
Texas and Illinois have also passed education laws for internet safety, but the lessons are NOT mandatory. In addition to integrating web safety into existing coursework, the Virginia Department of Education Office also helps schools educate PARENTS about web safety in the home; encouraging the use of filtering software etc.
Here’s a clip from the CBS news story in September.
