This provides a great teaching tool and bypasses many online problems, but it does not offer the opportunity to do any independent exploration on a topic. These products can be useful for schools, but are by no means a global solution to a moral problem. Each lesson is unique and has to be treated as such. Teachers and schools must determine the level of research the student needs to do independently. This will be vastly different in a third grade health class than in an eighth grade social studies class.
Schools are at a crucial crossroads.
We cannot allow the public to believe that site-filtering products will make the Internet a safe place for children to be unsupervised. We must keep in mind the power of the Internet as a research tool while educating our students to the dangers that may lurk on line. A teacher sending her students to New York City may warn them to be aware of crime and drugs while encouraging them to explore the museums and Broadway. Curiosity is a natural, healthy instinct. We should not stifle it, but at the same time we must help our children to make mature, moral decisions about what to, and what not to, access on the Internet.