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"Zinie Chen Sampson of the Associated Press is reporting that grade schools in the state of Virginia have begun teaching classes in general Internet safety.\nGene Fishel, an assistant attorney general for the state, seemed to kick off the new curriculum in presenting a screenshot of  the social networking profile to a high school class at James River High School of a supposed 15-year-old, nicknamed \"hotlilflgirl,\" whom he then revealed was actually a 31-year-old man who was now convicted and sentenced to 45 years in prison for sexual assault on 11 children.\nVirginia is the first state to put these Internet safety classes into action as being mandatory, but Texas and Illinois have also passed legislation to have some form of classes in the near future.  Judi Westberg Warren of Web Wise Kids, a non-profit organization providing free lessons to schools to teach 11 to 16-year-olds about Web safety, said that other states are also considering similar legislation.  The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children estimated that in 2006, 13% of children between the ages of 10 an 17 that were online had received unwanted sexual advances, and 4% of those children had been asked for sexually explicit or naked photos of themselves.\nThe Virginia program is attempting to safeguard the children by educating the students as well as the parents.  To the children, they are trying to explain never to meet anyone you meet solely online, as well as trying to remember that anything you post today could come back to haunt you years from now when applying to a university or a job.  For the parents, they are trying to explain that they should install filtering software as well keeping computers in common areas of the home so they can monitor their child's activities while online.\nWhile I've never been a major fan of the concept of \"school as parent\" in teaching children what they should really be learning at home, this is one time where it is quite possible the school would know more than a parent. Nonetheless, as the oldest member of the Mashable staff, I am happy to say that education officials are at least trying to school parents on the need to pay greater attention to their technological responsibilities when it comes to their children.  The most effective defense will generally be for parents to get involved in their child's activities, whether they be online or off."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/04/06/virginia-internet-safety-schooling/>