Educators Need To Draw The Line

Welcome Guest. | Log In| Register | Membership Benefits

September 09, 1999 (5:53 AM EDT)

By Malcolm Maclachlan,

Parry Aftab thinks schools and parents should be much more demanding about what products and content they allow the technology industry to put in front of their kids.

Aftab is a lawyer specializing in new media. She is also a mother and director of the CyberAngels online children's protection group. She was recently named by UNESCO, the United Nations' Education, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, to head up its online safety project for the United States and Canada.

CyberAngels launched the GetNetWise program earlier this year as a guide to the Internet for concerned parents. Aftab will follow up this effort in November when McGraw-Hill will releases her new book, Protecting Children in Cyberspace. All proceeds will go to CyberAngels, GetNetWise, and her other efforts.

Listen here for more information from Parry Aftab. (requires RealAudio player)

The private enterprise can have a place in schools, she said. After all, the best content and technology innovation now comes from the private sector. However, she added, a line needs to be drawn at marketing to kids. Instead, software and content for kids should target any ads at parents, she said.

Aftab recently spoke to TechWeb's Malcolm Maclachlan.

One issue that has not gotten as much attention is computers and the Internet in schools, and whether the inherent cost of these materials has opened the door for commercialization of schools.

It's a Catch-22. The richest content, the innovations in education are coming from the commercial sector. When you look at digital TV and what that's going to mean to education -- one of the projects we've looked at will have Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama lecturing directly into the classroom using digital TV. It's hard for regular classrooms and teachers to keep up with that kind of competition.

At the same time, we don't want our kids being marketed to in schools. It's a very careful line that has to be walked where the schools aren't just selling out allowing this to become a 24 -hour-a-day advertisement to kids, but allowing in rich content that isn't branded in such a way that it's an advertisement.

What kind of rules would you suggest for companies that participate in putting computers and the Internet into schools?

Schools have to sit down and evaluate the companies and reliability. They need to be able to talk to other schools and teachers that have dealt with those companies.

They have to weigh the cost, meaning the commercialization that gets into the school vs. the benefit they're getting from using that product.

I think there are other ways they can do it -- by teaching the advertisers and the companies that they can build brand loyalty by being innovative. For example, the Fleet kids site doesn't advertise Fleet. They realize the benefit they get by being altruistic -- by merely putting their name brand at the top of the very first screen in very discreet way -- is going to get them more play than constantly bombarding children with ads.

Are companies blinded by dollar signs?

I don't think they're blinded by the dollar signs too much. I think they're blinded by the need to make sure their children have interactive media in the schools. They are so curtailed by limited budgets that they have to come up with some way of getting the kids wired, and this is the easiest way of doing it.

I think, perhaps, they don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth. But we need to. What we have learned over the past few years since the launch of the Web in a serious way is that the industry responds to pressure. If we say we want companies to develop content for us that does X, Y, and Z, but do not do 1, 2, and 3, someone will be there.