Dealing with Inappropriate Web Pages

Students may stumble onto (or actively seek out) inappropriate web pages.  What do you do?

Step 1: 

Ask the students to move away from the computer and/or turn off the monitor (the screen). The power button is usually near the lower, right, front part of the screen. Be sure you familiarize yourself and your students with the power buttons on the monitors you routinely use.

If you can't easily turn off the monitor and the web site is particularly offensive, you could turn off the power to the computer. Or you could continue with the next step(s).

Step 2: 

If the monitor is off, turn it back on and record the web site address (URL).

Then, either click the close box (the [X] in the upper right corner of the window) or type <Alt> <F4> (i.e., press and hold the <Alt> key, tap the <F4> key, then release the <Alt> key). 

On some web sites, as soon as you close one window another window may be displayed, so keep clicking the close box on each window that is displayed or keep the <Alt> key pressed and tap the <F4> key repeatedly. Release the <Alt> key when you've closed all the windows.

Step 3: 

Close any "hidden" windows. Such a window may not be visible on the screen, but it will appear as a button on the task bar at the bottom of the screen. Close any such window by clicking the button on the task bar to activate the window and then clicking the close box or typing <Alt> <F4>.

Step 4: 

Seize the "teachable moment" and review with students what to do if this happens to them.

Step 5: 

Send e-mail to dnsmail with the web address of the inappropriate web page. DNS can add it to a list of "blocked" sites so that other students will not be able to access that site, either accidentally or on purpose.

Ideally, students would never accidentally stumble onto inappropriate web pages. But the reality is that it inevitably will happen, hopefully rarely as seems to be our experience to date. Students and teachers need to learn how to deal with such occurrences.

There are several strategies that we should be employing to minimize the chances of such occurrences:

• Discuss the unregulated nature of the Internet with your students and the possibility to stumble onto inappropriate web pages. Make sure they are familiar with the steps above. Remind them to let you know if they view a web site (or receive e-mail or participate in a chat or a video conference) that makes them feel uncomfortable or is clearly inappropriate for school.
• Always supervise students when they are browsing the Internet.
• Make custom web sites that have no links to the Internet at large (especially for students in the youngest grades).
• Make web guides--web pages of links that the teacher has identified as age-appropriate and content-rich. Rather than do searches of the entire web, students use these links to locate project-related information.
• Use the ITE web site, which has links to high quality, curriculum-related web pages. We are in the final stages of a major overhaul of this site to make it much more user friendly. Please send us URLs for any high quality web pages that you have used with your students. (The address is: www.sbschools.net/district/ite.) 
• Teach students how to use the library system, which has curriculum-related web pages that have been screened by Follett employees.
• Teach students to use "kid friendly" directories, search tools, and web sites. These sites have been screened by humans.
• Teach older students how to search effectively and responsibly. If you're not a proficient Internet researcher, you may want to peruse the info on searching.htm. 
• Attend a workshop or a course with ITE on Internet research. If you're interested, please let us know and we can set up such a workshop.  E-mail Steve Webster, swebster@sbschools.net, or call him at 652-7282.

To the Using the Internet for Research Web Page

To the Information Technology Education Home Page

Problems or Concerns?  Email Steve Webster
Last updated 01/17/06