Author steers way for kids to enjoy Net

Ex-librarian who coined `surfing the Internet' writes book for children
BY LARRY MAGID

AL Gore may claim to have invented the Internet, but a community librarian in upstate New York really did coin the term ``surfing the Internet.''

Jean Armour Polly made that contribution to our vernacular in a 1992 magazine article. And, while no longer a librarian, Polly continues breaking ground as the author of ``The Internet Kids & Family Yellow Pages,'' published by Osborne McGraw Hill, a book that has helped hundreds of thousands of children and parents navigate the Net safely, comfortably and productively.

Polly, also known as Net-mom (www.netmom.com), has been working with computers and modems since 1983, giving her perspective to offer some good advice to parents looking for suitable Web sites for their kids. She looks for sites that have authority and currency, are age appropriate, have an acceptable ``signal to noise ratio,'' are easy to navigate and have offline activities for kids.

This quest has taken Polly, the mother of a 14-year-old son, to more than 30,000 children's Web sites since she started researching the first edition of her book in 1995. The book is now in it fourth edition, with a fifth iteration scheduled for October.

To meet Polly's ``authority'' criteria, the site must be credible. Polly wants to know, ``Who is behind the site? Is it Discovery Channel or National Geographic or someone you've never heard of?'' The challenge today, says Polly, is ``not whether kids can find it on the Internet, but whether it comes from a source they can trust.''

She advises parents to ``look for someone with real world authority such as a newspaper, government agency or university. Even with a university, you have to distinguish between student pages that may not be accurate and recognized academic scholars.''

That doesn't mean that sites put up by ordinary people can't be useful, but it does mean visitors need to be careful to make sure they're credible.

She also cautions to check for currency. ``Some pages have been on the Web since 1994 and have never been updated.'' Polly has come across chemistry sites, for example, that don't include recently discovered elements. She looks for a ``last update'' notation on a site's front page, though not all sites say when they've last been updated.

Sites also need to be age appropriate. ``If a middle school child needs information on how the heart works, you don't want the child to get lost in a lengthy medical journal article when they could just as easily find a well illustrated article written to the child's level.'' Finding age appropriate sites is simpler than it used to be, thanks to Internet directories designed for kids such as Yahooligans (www.yahooligans.com), Ask Jeeves for Kids (www.ajkids.com) and Kids Click Software (www.kidsclick.com).

Polly urges parents to steer their children toward several kid-appropriate search engines. ``People need to know that there is life beyond Yahoo.''

Polly also looks for an appropriate ``mix of signal to noise.''

``Many sites have too many distractions that take away from the value of the site,'' she explains. ``It's really easy for kids to be distracted by ads, pop-up windows and music that they can't turn off.'' She isn't necessarily opposed to advertisements on children's sites, noting that ``people need to able to fund their sites,'' but cautions that site operators must ``remember their real purpose is to disseminate information, not just rake in dollars.''

Some of the sites that have been in her book for several years, Polly adds, ``have been kicked out in the new edition because they have gone overboard with distracting ads and sponsorships.'' Even some sites that don't carry ads have ``annoying animations, gratuitous use of Java and too many things that flash, spin and make noise.''

Sites should also be easy to navigate. ``Broken links can frustrate children,'' complains Polly. ``Some sites are so poorly organized that you can't even find the home page from a content page.'' Polly says that she can live without a search button but, ``it better be easy to find things.''

Finally, she looks for sites that offer some type of offline activities for kids. ``Kids need to spend time in `actual reality' away from the keyboard.'' A lot of sites ``try to keep you there as long as possible.'' Her book, which is organized by subject area, contains numerous sites offering real-world activities on topics ranging from kitchen experiments (www.spartechsoftware.com/reeko) and crafts (www.theideabox.com) to things to identify in nature (enature.com) and other activities that you can do away from the computer.

Polly is also concerned about privacy, but doesn't necessarily reject sites that don't post a privacy policy. ``Some sites in my book, especially those created by kids, don't have privacy policies but also don't ask for personal information.'' Polly urges parents to read privacy policies where they are present, though points out that protecting children's privacy is a bit easier now that the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act is law. For more on children's privacy, click on the ``Kidz Privacy'' icon at the bottom of the Federal Trade Commission's site (www.ftc.gov).

You'll find Polly's ``100 Top Sites'' for children at her Netmom.com site. She has also put together a list of ``Top Fifteen Sites for Summer Fun.'' My favorites are Spaceday.com (www.spaceday.com), which challenges kids to put the summer constellations where they belong in the sky, and ChildFun.com (www.childfun.com), which includes lots of offline summer activities for kids.

One of Polly's goals when she first started writing the book was to convince educators and librarians the Internet was worth having around. ``All we were hearing about was from Senator Exxon and others about how bad the Internet was for children. There was even talk about keeping kids off the Internet.''

Today, the Internet is far more accepted but, says Polly, there are still plenty of parents, educators and librarians who worry that the Net can do more harm than good. Her antidote to all the potholes on the information highway is to provide information on the many sites that are not only devoid of porn and other nasty things, but packed with useful tools, information and entertainment.