According to federal law, it is a school’s responsibility to ensure that students who have access to the Internet are being protected. Schools must make sure that students are not accessing inappropriate materials or being contacted by potential sexual predators. This can be a difficult task when some primary and secondary schools have hundreds of computers that are connected to the Internet. This difficult task can be made easier through the use of various programs and downloads that school administrators can use to monitor a student’s Internet use.
The first program or download that school administrators should consider using is a network filtration system. Network filtration systems allow school administers to filter out specific content that is deemed unacceptable. Examples of content that can be filtered through a network filtration system include porn sites, violent video games and websites where there are chat programs. The problem with a filtration system is that if the website is not known to the filtration system it will be allowed in. With the changing nature of the Internet it could take days or weeks before an unacceptable website is filtered out.
The second program or download that school administrators should consider using is a stealth monitoring program. These stealth monitoring programs can be downloaded onto the network and provide administers with a detailed look at what their students are using the Internet for. These programs can show what websites were visited, how long a student spent on them and what was done on the website. This can be used to help administrators see what websites are popular and getting around the filter. Another great benefit of these programs is the keyword function. It allows school administrators or computer lab monitors to be notified should a student type a specific keyword that might indicate that they are violating the school’s acceptable use policy or putting themselves in danger by looking for websites that are violating the school’s filtration system.