SASEBO NAVAL BASE, Japan — Officials with the Department of Defense Education Activity want their students to learn what’s good, bad and ugly about the Internet.
To protect students from the dark side of the Net, all DODEA and Department of Defense Dependents Schools worldwide are teaching a new program designed to make Internet use safer, said Peter Grenier, DODDS-Pacific spokesman.
Ernest J. King High School assistant principal George Man said Thursday that DODDS will use iSAFE (Internet Safety Education Program) America Inc., a nonprofit foundation whose mission is to educate and empower youth to safely and responsibly take control of their Internet experiences.
The program provides students with the knowledge to recognize and avoid dangerous, destructive or unlawful behavior and to respond appropriately, according to the iSAFE America Web site.
Grenier said all the DODDS-Pacific staff should be trained by February. Congress has designated iSAFE America to bring Internet safety awareness to the youth of the nation.
The iSAFE program is being taught to more than 103,000 DODEA students in 15 countries, according to the Web site.
In addition to the DODEA schools, iSAFE is being adopted in 35 states, Man said. “Our assistant principals just finished the training, and during the last semester we expect to start implementing the lesson with students based on their grade levels,” Man added.
General Internet use by students is monitored and filters block certain sites known for inappropriate content, he added. Students aren’t allowed access to private e-mail accounts from the school’s computers. “There’s no way we can monitor accounts like Yahoo! and Hotmail. That’s why we use the Gaggle.net.”
Each student receives a Gaggle.net e-mail account accessed through a Web browser, Man said, and each teacher receives a master account. The teacher accounts give access to the special monitoring and control sections within the Gaggle Network. They can view the contents of a student’s e-mail, and review any message the students have sent or received.
Teachers have the ability to suspend a student’s account and change their password and screen name, Man said.
In addition, the King assistant principal conducted some training for the King High School staff on Wednesday.
“One thing we talked about is something called ‘phishing’ where they use very good graphics to make a page look like a credit card company’s page and steal people’s account numbers … and sometime thousands of dollars,” he said.
“That’s what adults have to face out there. Imagine what children need to know to guard against predators and pedophiles. They need to know how to protect themselves,” Man added.
The iSAFE lessons start for students in late February.To learn more about iSAFE America, the Web site is www.isafe.org.
