My dd 3rd grader came home from school on friday and wanted to go on the computer. She wanted to share what the other kids in school had showed her on the computer. They have a few in the class with internet access. Well it turns out to be something from YouTube. I question that you can get on the site at school, she told me yes but the couldn't get on Cartoon Network. I really don't think they should be able to access YouTube. There are somethings on there that she should not be seeing. I know it's been cleaned up since Google bought it but still. Am I over reacting??

Are you overreacting? I guess it depends. Our school district requires parents to sign a waiver/agreement that allows our children to have access to the internet. They make no claims that this site or that site cannot be accessed or that kid's won't be able to view things some parents believe are objectionable. And because kids often can get around blockers and other ways access is restricted, by signing a waiver, you pretty much agree your kid MAY see things you may not like.

Kids who are not granted permission by their parents are not taken into the computer lab.

Did you sign such an agreement?

I don't know if I signed any agreement...but school started 9 months ago.

First of all your child's teacher should be watching what the kids are doing, they should not just be "surfing aimlessly", but using the computer for instructional purposes.

Second, YouTube should be a blocked site through the district intranet. If it isn't I would certainly bring that up to someone at the school/district level. I know at my school it's blocked, as is Google Image Search another site the kids try to surf to look at stuff they aren't supposed to.

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Suz, thank you, I thought that if Cartoon Network was block so should YouTube. I talked to two mom's and they didn't even know what YouTube was...and I thought I lived under a rock. I called my sister on this and she said it should be but that the kids also use unblock.net to get by the sites that are block.

I went to unblock.net and to be honest, I couldn't figure out how they would use that site to unblock things that shoud be filtered already. It looks like a placeholder site for a domain.

I would definitely bring it up to your child's teacher. That way she can at least attempt to get off her butt and watch what the kids are doing. :-)

S

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I was subbing a few years ago and MTV.com was an allowed site... the third graders were having great fun there. Needless to say, I let the teacher know when she returned and now it is blocked.

Like the other poster above, we signed an internet access permission sheet at the beginning of the year. We sign about 30 papers at that time (it seems!) but I specifically remember that one as I did NOT sign the one allowing my sons' names to be published on the web.

Our schools sure deal with a lot of things nowadays that no one had to worry about when we were kids. It is so important for parents to be advocates for their children and let the school know of things like this that they might be unaware of. There is a nice way to tell them about it and they really will appreciate it.

Kathy,
Did you contact the school?

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We had similar problems from time to time at my DS school. When a questionable site was discovered we just notified the principal who notified the district and the computer people would block it. They had covered most questionable sites, but new ones pop up all the time.

One site was kind of like myspace where kids could easily build a website with personal info on it. A few had done so, but it was immediately removed when the proper people were told.

I am surprised that YouTube wasn't already blocked as this is a biggie with lots of questionable stuff on it. YouTube takes some stuff off when they hear about it, but sometimes things have a lot of views before they get taken off. It is easy to find swearing, girls lifting their tops and that sort of thing on YouTube.

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Donna

My son (now age 12 but then maybe 8) just came home. I asked him what the site was that kids from his old school were clicking and building their own web site. He knew immediately what the site was.

It was:

Personal Website Builder - Build a Website Easy and Free

You might want to make sure that this site is blocked too. Our kids were putting personal info out there in cybernet and they didn't realize the dangers. It was really easy to build the website.

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Donna

I asked around on who to talk to and I found out today. I also asked to others to see if they were concerned and most were others did not even know what YouTube was. (I am new to this school, the old school I could have called the computer teacher at home) So, tomorrow after everyone gets an award day I will talk to the computer person and see if she knew about YouTube.