Kristen Ciferri
SLM 521
Course Module 1
Help Keep Our
Students Safe –
Security Software For School Computers
Introduction – You are a media specialist at an elementary school and you just found
out that several students have accessed a pornographic website by entering the
word love into a search engine. You have
decided that your school needs some type of security/control system for the
computer network and Internet. It’s up
to you to research software and then present into the school administration. Good luck!
o Internet
Access in U.S. Public Schools and Classrooms - This article provides
statistics on Internet in schools for the years 1994-2001. The section on ‘How are public schools
preventing students from accessing inappropriate material’ is very interesting.
(http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2001/2001071.pdf)
o Censorware - A great
article that explains the idea of censorware, how it
works, and how choose the right kind. It
also provides numerous different products and articles for further reading. (http://www.electronic-school.com/0198f1.html)
o Learning from The Internet
Filter Assessment Project - This project was created by school
librarians. Their goal was to demonstrate
how filters perform better at minimal settings, how to identify levels of
comfort and discomfort with a variety of Internet content, and to demonstrate
the value of testing filters. (http://www.bluehighways.com/tifap/learn.htm)
o ISAFE Empowers Children
to be Responsible and Secure Cyber Citizens - I-SAFE is an educational
non-profit that promotes safety for children online. This is an article about what they do. (http://www.netday.org/article_cyber_security.htm
o One District's Approach
to Security - This is an article about what Sequoia Union High School
District (SUHSD) in
o School
is in: 7 computer security tips for students - General tips that teachers
need to teach students about Internet usage. (http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/children/backtoschool.mspx)
Activity – In
this activity, you are a school media specialist. You must present to the school administration
with your findings on security software packages for computers in your
school. First you will research what are
the key components of security software and then choose several products you
feel are the best on the market.
You will take the information you researched and create a
brochure to give the school administration.
Your brochure must include your
top three picks and your top pick that has the best value. You should also include why you choose each
of those products. Review as many of the
links below as you can to find the best products out there. Feel free to research other sites that are
not on this list.
Sites –
SafeSurf - Making the Net Safe - SafeSurf introduces the concept
of a cyberplayground of safe sites by creating SafeSurfing Page along with a Rating Standard, which is the
concept of placing rating tags in the headers of HTML documents and is monitored
by Cyber Patrol. (http://www.safesurf.com)
ProtectKids.com
– This website gives parents, teachers, children, and
others information about how to protect our students while they are using the
internet. (http://www.protectkids.com)
NetDay – This website helps educators meet education goals through the effective
use of technology. It has more than
2,000 education technology resources for grades K-12 including the Cyber
Security Kit for Schools. (http://www.netday.org)
Internet filtering, blocking and
monitoring products -
Cyber Patrol. Microsystems Software,
Inc.
Cyber Sentinel. Security Software
Systems, Inc.
CYBERsitter. Solid Oak Software, Inc.
Net Nanny. Net Nanny Software
International, Inc.
NetSnitch. NetSnitch, LLC.
SurfCONTROL. JSB Computer Systems Ltd.
WatchGuard. WatchGuard Technologies, Inc.
WebSENSE. NetPartners Internet Solutions,
Inc.
X-STOP. LOG-ON Data Corp.
Assignment - Create an illustrated web
brochure (web page) that lists and describes your top three choices for
computer security software for school computers and your top pick for value for
a total of four different products. Be sure
to include at least one paragraph about each product including the website URL
and the cost of the product.
o
Submission - Post your activities as an html file to the McDaniel Web Server,
create a link to the file on your index page, and send your instructor an email
notification containing a hot link and the URL.
Rubric
|
|
Unacceptable |
Developing |
Accomplished |
|
Brochure |
Has
less than three software packages and does not include information about
them. |
Has
three or more software packages.
Includes brief description of software. |
Has
four different software packages listed including top 3 and best value. Each has at least a paragraph of
descriptive information including URL and cost that supports research was
done. |
|
Information |
The
information in the brochure is inaccurate. |
The
information in the brochure has some inaccuracies. |
The
information in the brochure is all correct. |
|
Grammar and
Spelling |
There
are more than 2 grammatical/ spelling errors in the brochure. |
There
are 1 to 2 grammatical/ spelling errors in the brochure. |
There
are no grammatical/ spelling errors in the brochure. |