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Internet Safety
Wherever you are in the world, you must do your best to stay safe. That is also true on the Internet. Here are some
ways to stay safe online.
Explore the Internet with your family. Here are some
sites for parentS, guardians and kids:
Use Kid-Friendly Search Engines.
These search engines
try to find sites meant especially for kids:
These web pages group search engines to find sites that kids like, but not all sites have been reviewed by an adult:
Learn to use Bookmarks or Favorites to save cool sites at
home. This way you will know for sure that you have the right
address and will avoid stumbling into a site not meant for kids. An
example of a great site to bookmark is the ACPL
Children's Services Fun Links:
http://www.acpl.lib.in.us/children/funlinks.html
Evaluate the information. Just because something
is on the Internet does not mean it is true. There is misleading and
false information on the Internet.
If you have doubts about something you find, double-check the information
in a reliable source. (Hint: You can always ask a librarian to help.)
Multnomah County Library has a great
page to help you evaluate information on the Internet:
http://www.multcolib.org/homework/webeval.html
Chat with caution. Chat only with people you already
know or stay on Kid Chat sites that have someone to watch that the
chat is about kid stuff. Your parent or guardian will have to give
permission to these sites to let you chat. Below is a Kid Chat
site:
KidsCom
KidsChat
http://www.kidscom.com/chat/kidschat/kidschat.html
(Sign-up at http://www.kidscom.com/cgi-bin/registration/kc/kc_register.pl)
Never give out any personal information on the Internet
without first checking with your parent or guardian.
Remember, the people you meet online are strangers. Tell a grown-up
(one you know and trust) if something happens online that is weird.
Here are some sites with safety information:
Practice netiquette. Netiquette is a funny word for
being polite online. Consider how you would like to be treated, and
treat others the same way.
Check out this site for more information:
Check if the site is secure. The only way to be sure
that no one else can see what information you send out on the Internet
is on a secure Web site. Secure sites use encryption, which basically
scrambles up what is sent. Then the only one who can read the information
is the one it is sent to. To check for security, look for an image
of a closed, or locked, lock on the screen. On Netscape, look for
the lock image on the Task Bar at the top of the screen. On Internet
Explorer, the lock will appear very small at the bottom of your screen.
The address (URL) of a secure Web site should also start with https
- not just http.
Learn about COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection
Act). Be aware that it’s against the law for anyone
with an Internet site to take personal information from anyone who
is 13 or younger without the permission of that person’s parent.
Know how to read (or decode) a web address. This
will also help you to evaluate the site. A web address is called a
URL (Uniform Resource Locator). Here is a URL, which is then decoded:
http:// www.acpl.lib.in.us/children/internet.html
- The http:// is the protocol. All Web sites will start
with http:// (hypertext transfer protocol). Remember, if it is a secure
site, the protocol will be https://.
- The www.acpl.lib.in.us is the domain name. This one
stands for: World Wide Web. Allen County Public Library. Library.
Indiana. United States. Some popular domain types for the United States
are:
.com : Commercial site
.edu : Educational institution (colleges and universities)
.org : Non-profit organization
.gov : Government site
Many other countries end their domain with a two-letter country code:.fr
for France; .mx for Mexico; .de
for Germany; .es for Spain.
- The children is the name of the directory for the
Children’s Services department on our library’s server
(a big computerized storage space for computer files).
- The internet.html is the file name and file type
of this page. Many Web pages end in .html or .htm.
HTML stands for Hypertext Mark-up Language. This is a special code
that allows different computer browsers to show the same site the
same way.
For more information about reading a web address or creating a web
page of your own, check out these sites:
This page was created by Sara Patalita for Children's Services'
Internet for Kids and Parents program. Please be advised that,
due to the mutability of the Internet, these sites and/or their addresses
may change without warning.
Comments and suggestions can be sent to Becky White at bwhite@acpl.lib.in.us,
or to Mary R. Voors, Manager, Children's Services at mvoors@acpl.lib.in.us.
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