Schools’ main job is to educate your kids and protect them in every way. The number one priority of the schooling systems nowadays is to keep the children safe. This includes the time they spend in the school as well as the time they spend online.
The Internet has its own benefits as well as dangers. A child may not realize what is dangerous for them while they are spending time online. Schools, therefore, want to protect children from seeing adult content, chatting with internet strangers, sexting, creating fake accounts, hacking into networks, stealing passwords and more.
What schooling systems do is restrict certain websites so that students cannot access them while they are on the school’s premises. It is quite justified to restrict websites that include mature material but there are many opinions regarding the online boundaries and restrictions that limit students’ access to the research sites.
Importance of Internet in Schools
In today’s time, the internet is very important for education. The advancement of internet technologies has raised the bar of education across the world. Students are not taught the same way they were taught before the internet usage which is why students require access to certain websites from which they can do research.
In this age, Google has become a teacher and the internet, a school. Students can self-teach themselves any math problem they do not understand by watching a video online. The same applies to the other subjects. By restricting certain websites in school students are restricted in learning and researching their queries as well.
Moreover, schools restrict the internet for students but students have found a way to unblock what they want to see by using an internet hack. What students do is they install a Virtual Private Network and access the content they require for research. A VPN offers fast speeds and strong security and a great server network.
Students can easily find a suitable VPN for their requirements by viewing the best VPN comparisons online and selecting one. Although this is not right, students’ feel the need to unlock the restricted content.
Reasons why schools restrict the Internet
The internet restriction or content filtering in schools is quite debatable. While most are in favour of the restrictions, there are some who oppose them. Schools filter content due to some solid reasons for which there is no argument. The reasons are:
- Compliance with the Children’s Internet Protection Act.
The number one reason for restricting the internet is to follow the CIPA whose goal is to restrict students from accessing obscene or harmful content online. Pornography and violence are included in such content.
Schools implement content filtering following CIPA guidelines. This is an important step for schools as it impacts the funding.
- To Keep Cyberbullying in control.
Bullying is common everywhere among students, especially in the United States. Although physical bullying is more common than cyberbullying, as the exposure to the internet is growing so is the rate of cyberbullying.
It usually happens over text messages or online. The schooling systems can only reign over such issues to an extent which is why they limit the internet overall so that kids can feel protected and there is minimum online bullying.
Schools usually limit access to forums, chats and blogs where bullying takes place. However, this move does not put an end to cyberbullying but it does have some influence on controlling the ratio.
- Keep students on track.
The massive usage of the internet over social media, games and videos distracts students from learning and taking lessons in school. Students in their classrooms get distracted and spend time on entertainment and gaming sites while missing important lessons.
Content filtering blocks such sites so that students can focus on their syllabus and keep on track. However, this only stops students from getting distracted in the classroom. After school hours, students can still get distracted if not watched closely.
- Protect the students.
Schools want to protect the students from not only phishing and malware websites but also from online predators who could access private information from innocent children.
Blogs, chats and forums opened through a class computer can help online predators find students. Children might unknowingly share their personal data and location which could lead to a dangerous situation. To protect the students from such case scenarios, schools limit the internet for them.
- To get the visibility of what the students are accessing.
Schools restrict the internet for students and apply content filtering to protect the students as well as keep an eye on them. You would want to know how.
By filtering the content, schools get anonymous visibility to what the students are searching for over the internet. This helps them analyze the trends among them and block popular websites. It also helps in looking out for any threats.
Conclusion
Students are very creative and they know a way out of every barrier and limitation somehow. Schools limit their access to the internet in multiple ways and students access it in some way or the other. However, the reasons why schools restrict the internet for them cannot be foreseen.
