The Role of Schools in Teaching Children the Right Ways of Internet Usage

The evolved new millennium acknowledges the World Wide Web (WWW) as one of its prime lifeline for assuring both continuous progress and wholesome daily sustenance. To ‘belong’ to the global society of the 22^nd century in the literal sense, people of today are expected to be optimally conversant with the usage of the digital dais for learning, working, and communicating. To this end, there crops up the essentiality of having a holistic ‘Internet Education’ from the early years of life. Present-day kids must be endowed with optimum schooling on the methodology for serviceably utilizing the WWW platform. For keeping pace with the relentlessly forward-moving world, children should necessarily learn about those facets of the Internet, which can beneficently enrich their quality of education, boost confidence, and nurture interactive skills.

The growing ones also require knowing the procedure of including the Web, most meaningfully, into their every-day learning routine and thus meet the goal of advanced-level learning. All such wisdom pieces ensure that children are becoming futuristically ready to face the real world and getting equipped with the agility required for accustoming the progressive pedagogy practiced at world-class higher educational organizations. In this regard, it emerges as a cardinal duty of the patron school to impart most integrated tutoring to each student about the serviceability of the Internet for academic learning and character building. The official study module at every school, prevailing at the global education arena, must retain an attached ‘Web’ angle to it and as a daily classroom norm, teachers must enlighten the young learners over the right approach to use the cyber portal and thereby ensure best of their self-enhancement.

Now, over this aspect of ‘right approach,’ there emerges two distinctive dimensions. The first one covers the conventional tasks of instructors in giving the kids technical guidance for effectively availing the WWW porch and infusing into them the habit of opting for it regularly as an indispensable part of their ‘getting educated’ course. However, the second chore is more for us, the parents, teachers, and the guardians, to realize. It is the vital job of making sure that whether at school or home, the kid is not using the Internet for any purpose unfitted concerning his/her age and is not getting exposed to violent or unacceptable information or audio-visual content. It is a kind of ‘molding the mind’ duty, which impulsively prevents children from applying their ‘Web’ acumen with any immoral intention. Given to the fact that data of all kinds is getting increasingly available at Internet gratis cost, this second task appears to be of fair-enough significance for the adults around to realize.

Impeccably actualizing these two exquisite commitments, we, at the K.R. Mangalam School, one among the best CBSE affiliated schools in Delhi, pay earnest heed to the under-mentioned methods:

• Making the Web resources a crucial part of the formal academic curriculum and, in a most spontaneous fashion, obliging the students to use them and consequently learn the embedded techniques

• Framing school projects in such a way, where cyber surfing is an indispensable part to undergo, and thereby turning students all the more deft over the ‘Net’

• Guiding students over the procedures to optimize and refine their search at Web; helping them to utilize digital maps, download E-books, access virtual dictionaries and archives and so on

• Enlightening them over self-evaluation I.Q tests available at the digital portals and encouraging them to undertake those for improvement

• Having relentless vigilance over students as they avail the ‘Net’ at school, utilizing virtual filters like WebSense, so as to rule out the possibility of any misusage

• Maintaining a centralized connectivity system for easy detection of any undue activities

• Retaining child counselors within the school’s operative framework to mentor the youths over Internet’s most productive use for extra-curricular activities in addition to learning, such as joining online debate forums, literature groups, NGO communities, etc. A prime example in here can be cited of ‘Nirantar’ which is K.R. Mangalam School’s online school magazine that keeps students most ethically engaged to the WWW dais.

• Regularly alerting and guiding the students on how improper Internet usage can weaken their attention span, affect academic performance, and impede future growth.

At the backdrop of these schemes, the K.R Mangalam World School sets a true awe-inspiring example in the education domain. Realizing Internet’s crucial role in ensuring the matchless standard of education and exploration of each student’s best aptitude and for guaranteeing that advantage at its infrastructure, the school does take few virtuous steps. It establishes LAN network all-round the campus, patronizes as many as possible online scholastic services for students to avail and facilitates with the World Wide Web perk at laboratories and libraries.

The K.R. Mangalam School, being one of the top 10 international schools in Delhi, offers student counseling for making the young minds aware about Internet’s exact role in their life and for preventing them from making Web’s illicit use. In a real optimistic maneuver, the K.R. Mangalam School has been carrying on with its duty of making every learner righteously savvy over the WWW stage.