Internet Filtering

Stacey Kahler

SLM 521

Pros	Cons
It is effective at blocking pornographic pictures.	It sometimes won’t block inappropriate content and sometimes blocks content that is okay.
If you install a filter you will get money from eRate because you are in compliance with CIPA	Putting filtering software on all computers is hard to do.
There are many different filters that you can choose from.	Is the filter blocking certain political views?
You can control the settings from restrictive to least restrictive.	Some filters do not filter chats. According to recent news headlines, that is where teenagers especially get into trouble.
Helps prevent against computer viruses	Older students doing research may have a harder time with it because of filtering

Before I did this assignment, I thought that filters were something that needed to be on the computers, but these articles (which I do have to say were one-sided, which made it hard to find Pros) made me think in a different light, but then I didn’t think that filters let some inappropriate things through (although I do know they block okay content – I try to get T.V. Guide online at school and I can’t).

I always thought it is the teacher’s job and not a filters job to watch what the children are getting into on the Internet. If a teacher is well planned for the computer lab, then there should be no children outside the planned activity. With the use of web-start pages and other activities, if the instruction is sound then the children will have no time and little motivation to go outside the “safe realm”.