How will new federal and state regulations affect internet safety education in schools?
In October, Congress passed a law that requires schools receiving federal e-Rate discounts to teach their students about online safety, sexual predators, and cyber bullying. The law also requires the Federal Trade Commission to carry out a national public awareness program focused on educating children how to use the internet in safe and responsible ways, and it establishes an “Online Safety and Technology Working Group” charged with evaluating online safety education efforts, parental control technologies, filtering and blocking software, and more. Educators will be watching closely to see how this new law is implemented in the coming months–and what it will mean for their internet-safety efforts. Also, as part of an agreement reached last January between MySpace and the attorneys general of 49 states, Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society headed a task force to explore technical ways to keep kids safe online–not only from sexual predators but also from online b
