The Department of E-Commerce is providing the following information for educators and will continue to develop initiatives relating to online safety for students, in partnership with educators to help in promoting online safety in the schools.

Here are a number of tips to help educators guide students in using the Internet wisely:

• Review the school's Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) for use of the Internet before engaging students in Internet research.
• Develop an Internet safety policy or adapt or use one of the many Internet safety policies found online. Teachers should make sure they review the policy with students before they go online. Teachers need to outline the consequences for violating the Internet safety policy.
• Discuss with students what to do if they connected to a site that they feel is inappropriate or makes them feel uncomfortable.
• Always supervise students when they are using the Internet. Never let students use the Internet alone.
• Do not let students communicate with individuals on the Internet unless a teacher or technology coordinator has initially set up the communication.
• Teachers should not ban communication altogether. Instead, teachers should set clear guidelines about acceptable use of email, instant messaging, discussion groups, and chat rooms.
• Teachers must make sure students are communicating only in pre-approved educational discussion areas.
• Teachers must watch for offensive and inappropriate language.
• Teach students to never give out personally identifiable information when communicating with others (i.e., full name, address, email address, phone number, school, etc.).
• Require students to search for specific information, as opposed to "surfing" the Internet haphazardly. Bookmark web sites ahead of time. This is a good way to control students' exposure to inappropriate sites.
• Preview or test web sites before sending students to visit them.
• Require students to record in a bibliographic format the URLs of the sites they use.
  

Report Inappropriate Content or Communications

Remember there is a reporting link on every page of this website at the bottom left. If you encounter child pornography or any activity related to, inappropriate e-mailing or the sexual exploitation of children on or offline, you can report it.