Cyberspace - May 1998

Fellow parents, take note: The growth rate for kids going online in the United States is breathtaking. When we started publishing The Sage Letter a year ago, Jupiter Communications estimated that there were 4 million children online. Now the figure is over 10 million, and that's expected to double in the next 18 months. Teenagers are going online in higher proportions than younger children. Jupiter projects that 75% of US teens will be surfing by 2002.

Lots of numbers, but meaningful ones, because of what they say about the growing size of the Internet's "footprint" in our children's lives! Are your children among the clickerati? (It's a term coined by MaMaMedia CEO Idit Harel, whom we interview below.) Do you want them to be? Or are your feelings on the subject decidedly mixed? We're discovering that ambivalence among us parents is rampant!

But an open-ended approach to kids surfing and chatting online is actually just about right at this stage of online development. Our understanding of its impact on our children, their academic and social lives, and society as a whole can't possibly keep up with the growth illustrated in those numbers above. A winter '98 report by the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Media Education (CME) acknowledges that, in these early days of the digital age, "No one yet knows what the full range of products and services for children will be, which ones will be successful, or how children will ultimately use and interact with these technologies."

Academia is way out in front; industry looks both ways; and parents+kids provide the grounding - the market - for the theory and the products of the first two. All are represented here. This issue is packed with roll-up-your sleeves-'n'-dig-in expertise of all types. There's the mom who's just dipping her toes in, the pre-teen old hand at chat, the teen expert in matters online who finds chat a bore, a teacher who's wisely shepherding her eight-year-old's chat experience, a Ph.D. in technology and education whose business, MaMaMedia, is for 5-to-10-year-olds playing and learning on the Web, and a professor of epistemology and learning at the MIT Media Lab. They're all feeling their way; only the grownups freely admit they are! Here's what we've got for you at a glance:

* * * *

"Chat" is right up there with e-mail at the top of the online-controversy list. Our January and February issues looked at e-mail in depth. Now - because we're hearing more and more questions from parents about the real-time side (e-mail is asynchronous, chat is like talking on the phone, only it's typed) of Internet communications - it's time to look at chat, from different angles. Why the angles? Because of where we all are on this digital-media learning curve. So we asked users and experts alike what they thought about this very free-form kind of online recreation and how it lines up with other activities in kids' lives.

There are many ways for kids to chat online. The safest places are the Web sites for kids whose publishers have conscientious privacy and safety policies and practices, usually involving parents as well as kids; Internet Relay Chat channels just for children; and the new kids-only areas in America Online and the Microsoft Network. Both AOL and MSN also offer parents tools to help make overall use of the services safer for kids. Total safety (e.g., freedom from sexual predators, porn salespersons, and the generally nasty) cannot be guaranteed, which is why anybody offering advice to parents says the 'Net is no better babysitter than television; parents need to stay involved and know something about what their children are going online. Here's a sampler of experiences:

Chat by 11
Christopher just "got AOL" for his 11th birthday last February. In his corner of New York State, chatting online is very cool to fifth-graders. Christopher chats about 45 minutes a day, Monday through Friday. Weekends are pretty full - with sports activities, he said - so chat time goes way down then. We asked him why he got into chatting. "Because a lot of my friends started going into chat rooms, so I wanted to." Here's where we went from there (we've put only Christopher's responses in quotes):

What do you like about chat? we asked him. "Well, it's like, because you can talk to your friends and stuff, and you don't have to hold a phone to your ear, and you get to type instead of talk." Typing's more fun than talking? "Yes." Why? "It's not really more fun, but when you're online you can be typing to your friends while doing something else." This comment we bookmarked! For this generation, multitasking is fun! What else would he be doing? we asked. "Talk to my mom or something. And a lot of times I do Instant Message for three people - I have three Instant Message screens going. [Instant Message is an AOL feature that allows members to send instant e-mail to other members whom they know are online. AOL's Buddy List technology tells a member when someone on his/her list is online, then they can send a message. More on this in "What we've learned" below.]

You like to do three instant messages at once while you're chatting? we asked. "Yeah, they [the three friends he's sending Instant Messages to] are in the chat room, too. You don't have to talk to just one person." And he can "talk" both privately and publicly at the same time.

Why is chat so much fun? we wanted to know. "Because, instead of watching TV, when you see each show a million times, you can talk to your friends instead - it's not like the same thing every night."

We asked Christopher what he and his friends chat about. He had to think for a bit, as if the conversation goes by so fast and covers so much that it's hard to say. We tossed out, "Weather, sports, people you know?" He said, "Yeah, all that stuff. It depends on who you're talking to. We talk about people in sports a lot. Also people we know."

Then we thought we'd try the safety issue on him, asking if he ever chats with people he doesn't know. "Sometimes," he said, "but I pretty much just chat with friends [in the neighborhood, at school]." We asked if any of his friends are addicted to chat yet, so that it was interfering with schoolwork or anything, and he said no. He doesn't know anybody who chats all the time.

We asked if he thinks parents should be around when kids chat. He said, "No. They just get in the way, and you can't type." Are there things he can't type in front of his parents? Is it the way he talks or the stuff he talks about? His answer wasn't exactly what we expected. "Both," he said. "When my mom's there, I have to type right, and I can't spell just right." He gave us an example: "Usually I spell 'nothing' n-o-t-i-n." From this and talking with his mom, we were pretty sure that, for Christopher, the problem with having her there was her interest in good grammar and spelling.

"Have you heard that chat isn't safe for kids?" we asked Christopher. "Nah, I don't think it's true. Nothing bad has happened to me or my friends. Parents always say, like, a kid will run off or get killed or something if you tell people [in chat rooms] where you live. I don't know." We asked him, Have you read the safety rules on AOL? "No, I didn't know there were any." Would you give somebody your address? "No."

Looking down the line a bit, we asked, Do you think you might talk to people you don't know in chat rooms when you get older? "Uh huh. The other day, at a friend's house, we searched for people in the AOL [member] directory. We saw who was online and talked to them a lot." Was it fun? we asked. "Yeah." Why? "Because we talked to this kid in California, and it was cool just to be talking to someone all the way by the Pacific Ocean."

Finally, we asked Christopher if he had any advice to other kids about chatting. "The best time is any time before 8 o'clock." Why? we asked. "Because by 8 all my friends are signed off and getting ready for bed, watching TV, or doing homework."

Tips from a Web-wise teen
One of our subscribers e-mailed us saying that Buddy Lists simply aren't safe, explaining: "My 11-year-old chatted often with a college student. She female. He male. He kept calling her on the phone until I picked up the receiver and said I would call the police." One thing's for sure: The phone number should never have been mentioned in chat!

We asked a 14-year-old student in CT who's very 'Net-literate what she thought of chat, and she confirmed that it's not for everyone. She e-mailed us, "I have a list and I am on other people's lists.... I used to chat on AOL.... Chat is generally just leisurely. It could take away from day-to-day chores and schoolwork but, because I don't like it, it doesn't for me. Though my roommate is online all the time, talking to her friends, and rarely does all of her homework because of it."

Her thoughts on safety: "A lot of people ask for your phone number and address and stuff, but most of them are pretty casual about it - there's hardly ever anything suspicious that goes on with that sort of stuff in my experience. But I know that sometimes people give their number to the wrong people."

A mother in Colorado e-mails us
Janet is a mom and a grade-school teacher who uses the Internet a lot in her teaching. You, like us, might appreciate the wisdom in her remarks: "My eight-year-old has discovered chats. We let her chat on the MSN moderated chats for kids 12 and under, nothing else. MSN also has private chats called "Friends On-Line," and she can chat with kids we know via that feature. So far, we haven't had any problems with unsolicited mail or major language or content problems on the chats, because MSN has a great monitoring program that alerts the hosts to profanity, to calls for help, etc., and directs the host immediately to the chatroom that alerted them....

"She really enjoys the chats, although they never seem to chat about anything to me! The real advantage is, we use it as a "carrot" - do your flute practice or math worksheet, or finish those chores, and you can go chat. She also has a one-hour limit that she knows we'll enforce, as she already lost privileges for three days by using it without permission. So, chats are working out well for us."

Christopher's mom
Robbin is new to the online world, and - because of that - she is much more representative of the vast majority of North American parents than Janet is. We benefit from Janet's experience, but we earlier adopters also gain a lot of perspective from peers just now joining the fray. Robbin clearly hasn't made any decisions yet about online's merits and risks. She's observing and withholding judgment till she knows more. What came through loud and clear in our conversation was that, with Christopher online, she's decidedly motivated. A year ago a class about the Internet would have been the last thing she wanted to spend precious time on. Now, she told us, it's a top priority. Here's what she told us:

"Online is really new for us this year, with Christopher going online (11 yrs old, 5th grade). Initially, it was a little searching here, a little surfing there with his father. It started with class projects. My husband's been online for about a year now."

We asked her what she thinks of it for Christopher. "For a research tool for him it sounds great, and it's the way of the future, but you often hear people talking about children losing the ability to really communicate. With chat and e-mail, children aren't writing full sentences. I think it becomes habit, so you do forget how to speak in full sentences and actually write. I think for young children what happens is, as they get younger and younger, it'll become a first learning. New York State has come out with higher standards for our schools in language arts and writing, and next year will be much more difficult - much less multiple choice and much more writing comprehension. And I'm not sure chatting will support that."

Another concern came up, too. "Pornography came up at a meeting our PTA had about the Internet. When one person's daughter logged on, she found there was a lot of mail about pornography. Christopher doesn't usually check the mail. So one afternoon I checked it out with him. I found a pornography piece. He didn't know what it was yet, so it was good that I caught it and could delete it right away before he knew what it was. Online is probably like anything - if you're helping them with their math, you have to be up on how it's taught. Unless you're a parent who's hands-on, you might not be aware that there is a danger. Before Christopher went online, I knew there were some risks, but I wasn't sure what they were....

"I would just have to say online is like anything: When the TV goes on, I hear it, and I know what they're watching. We reached some level of comfort with computer games, so initially I was treating chat a little like that. I would keep track of Christopher's time online - so he wouldn't get a headache or burn out. After he'd been on a while we needed a reality check. But I've learned that, with online, it's not just a time issue, it's a content issue.

"I think understanding the Internet is important. Unfortunately, a lot of their energy is spent not really using it as a resource tool. Every night he spends a half-hour to an hour online chatting with his friends. I'm beginning to think that being connected that way is in some way being disconnected.

"We live on a dead-end street - there are about 30 kids on our block. There are always kids outside playing basketball or rollerblading. It's fascinating seeing these kids come running in to get on the computer and 'talk' to somebody. I guess there's no difference from when we were teenagers and spent hours on the phone."

* * * *

Perspectives from creators of kids' online activities
Idit Harel, Ph.D. and mother of three, founded New York City-based MaMaMedia Inc. in 1995. She grew up in Israel, graduated from Tel Aviv University, received two Masters degrees from Harvard University (in Interactive Technologies & Education and in Human Development), then went on to MIT for her doctoral work. MaMaMedia creates home-based online learning activities for children aged 5 through 10. We put some tough questions to her:

Sage: Parents who don't know much about the Internet tell us they hear a lot about it, but want to know what place it has in their children's lives. Is it necessary or important for kids to be online? What do you think?
Idit: "I really think that, through many, many years of research about the importance of socialization and communication among children of all ages and how it contributes to cognitive development, kids from the same home, neighborhood, and other cultures talking to each other is a well-known good thing. There's something very powerful and theoretically really wonderful that can happen with this new technology if kids can talk to other kids of similar interests, to older or younger kids, and children of different cultures. Psychologists are encouraging this in children. We shouldn't forget this - the social construction of education - and know the importance of this as they learn and grow, as parents talk to their kids and collaborate. This is something everybody needs to remember.

"Forget about the way the technology is today! In theory, we have something that's basically incredible. I remember the first connection among inner-city kids in Roxbury in Boston, connecting them to kids in Costa Rica. These Hispanic kids wrote a little letter with a picture and received the same things back, and they said, 'They look like us!' The problem was, they never had chances to talk to kids outside their little neighborhood, and this experience was happening 13 yrs ago - in a healthy, moderated context. Something wonderful was happening to both the kids in Roxbury and in Costa Rica. This was the seed. We were already on the Internet in academics. We were dreaming of the Internet's potential, before Netscape was out there. All these multicultural communications could happen with people that were innovative and advanced, but it was about kids learning and communicating and socializing and sharing their projects with kids in their own classrorom, neighborhood, other cities, other kids in their own country, and kids in other countries. There is tremendous value to this.

"No parents think this kind of communication is bad. This is what the story's all about.... I have to admit that we have not yet found the right technology and the right human support to really create a safe, healthy environment for kids to share their projects and talk about them. That tech thing - that will be solved. We shouldn't focus too much on the technology, but rather on something else and envision it....It will happen probably in the next two years. Lots of virtual meeting places are appearing for grownups, but with kids it's a little different - we still need to sign the permission slip...."

Sage: Online chat is increasingly popular with kids. Parents would like to get your thoughts on where it lines up with other extra-curricular activities in their lives - sports, arts, TV, in-person socializing, etc.
Idit: "It's a very important activity, because it allows kids to expand their knowledge and learn in a way that they're sitting in the driver's seat and controlling their own learning - learning through play in collaboration with people of all ages. So it's happening."

Sage: How does it line up with other activities?
Idit: "Sports, music, ballet - they're important, and guess what? You can learn more about those activities on the 'Net. The Internet is going to be integrating into their lives, supporting other activities. It won't replace them. In our site, we're also sending people to places offline: for example, museums where they can learn more about what they see online. That will happen more and more - the integrating of everything that's going on in their communities: home to museum, home to school, home to other activities. There is more and more connection, especially thinking about inner-city kids and children who didn't before have access to this information before."

* * * *

Mitchel Resnick is a professor of Epistemology and Learning at the MIT Media Lab, helping to spawn projects, some of which will have profound impact on our children's and grandchildren's learning. He sites the projects of two of his students below, and we provide links to them - so you can get a glimpse of how today's educators and researchers are dreaming about how learning should be. We thought we'd e-mail Mitchel a couple of questions. A few days later, these answers arrived in our in-box:

Sage: Parents are asking why their kids should be online. Could you give us a thought or two?
Mitchel: "Being online is not inherently good nor inherently bad. It all depends on what the kids do online. My view is that kids learn a great deal when they are engaged in meaningful design activities - when they make things that are meaningful to themselves (and to others around them). So I particularly like online activities that engage kids as designers."

Sage: Is chat a useful activity for children to engage in? If so, how so?
Mitchel: "It all depends on how much time, with what type of community, etc. I'm more interested in having kids "chat" in the context of working on some type of project together. That's why we've worked on "virtual worlds" where kids collaborate to design the world in which they interact (and "chat") with one another. For example, see the MOOSE Crossing project by Amy Bruckman, and the PetPark project by Austina De Bonte." Both are Ph.D. research projects.

* * * *

What we've learned
Learning, designing, playing, and communicating collaboratively in real time over vast geographical distances - that's what the Internet will do best for kids, it seems to us. When the technology has progressed to the point where it allows children to interact not just with media, a computer, or a Web site, but with each other, the technology will have become truly useful. Not all they need, certainly, but - in balance with all the other important activities in their lives (and only they and their parents know what the balance is) - useful to their development.

The technology isn't there yet, but it's heading in the right direction. Idit Harel suggested that we focus not so much on where technology is right now as on the vision for collaborative play and communication it's trying to support. Filtering, chat-room security, and other safety technologies - another support to collaboration - aren't there yet either. We need to be alert to possible dangers (there's a link to a widely circulated example of how a cyber-stalker can find a child, as well as rules for avoiding such a situation, at the Penpals for Kids site in Mining Co.). Safety and global access to peers aren't mutually exclusive, but we need to decide which is more important to us and use the resources that emphasize one or the other; with technology where it is right now, we can't have both. Safety-conscious Web sites are more closed/less global than IRC for kids (see "Links to chat" below), but safer. Proprietary services like AOL split the difference; they have a lot more participants than a single Web site, but - by definition - they're not as open as IRC; and they're working hard to be safer for kids.

One more potential downside: Christopher's mom, Robbin, noted the brusque, individualistic shorthand of chat and wondered about its impact on children's writing skills - will it overtake the good habits learned in school?

As for the positives and potential, we've learned a lot here, too. Here are some examples of what we mean by useful collaboration:

A timely New York Times special section on Teens last month pointed to other types of potential good. (We can only point you to the archives page to retrieve it.) The two most relevant articles were by Ann Powers and Amy Harmon.) Referring to this "Autonomous Generation" of our children's, the Times suggested they are "creating themselves in nobody's image but their own." So self-discovery doesn't happen now by emulating heroes and role models, possibly; rather it happens in finding one's own uniqueness in a sea of others'. Teens often use chat for socializing with people of different ages in a relatively safe (from physical contact), zero-pressure place where they don't have to conform or be judged. One teenager profiled by Amy felt she didn't fit the mold at high school, so she went online, where people liked her because she was different.

Finally, there are the pure tech implications, for all of us. For example, AOL's trademarked Buddy List and Instant Message features last month went into the Smithsonian Institution's Permanent Research Collection on Information Technology Innovation at the National Museum of American History. That's a mouthful! The Buddy List, of which Christopher makes proficient use, allows members to know when their "buddies" are online; Instant Message allows them to send those buddies a message in real time (AOL also has an out-on-the-Internet version of it). The collection has more than 400 innovations from 40 states and 19 countries. In the press release announcing this development, AOL acknowledges that we're only just beginning to understand the implications of real-time text-based communications around the world. The only thing we do know, right now, is that it's a lot cheaper than international phone calls and that it will probably force even the giant national telcos abroad to reduce their prices.

* * * *

Links to chat
There are reportedly 20,000 chat rooms and 40,000 bulletin boards on the Internet. Here are just a few! We're not endorsing the following sites (except we let it be known in a review when we like the site). Rather, we want you to see a sampling of what's out there for kids in case you want to get there first. Some of these sites were clearly created with conscience, with kids' best interests in mind. Some are targeting teens, others middle-schoolers and younger.

We have two lists below, reflecting two ways to chat on the Internet (besides AOL and MSN, closed, proprietary pieces of the 'Net which limit members to chatting with one another): Web sites with chat and IRC (Internet Relay Chat). IRC is old-style real-time chat that's been around much longer than the Web. You can get to it now via some attractive Web interfaces that present all the information you need - FAQs, where to download IRC client software, who the sysops (or monitors) are, what the community's charter is, etc.

Unlike US-based Web sites with chat software on their servers, IRC is more global, more accessible to connected people around the world. Why? Because, like e-mail, it's pure text - faster and cheaper to download for people in countries where phone companies are monopolies and phone bills are high. Because it's older, less user-friendly technology than the Web, IRC does take a bit of getting used to, but the IRC that's dedicated to kids is no less safe than what children might encounter in general AOL and MSN chat rooms (though the online services have provided parental controls and kids-only areas to deal with problems). At the kids-only IRC channels listed below, kids' chat is monitored. For more detail on IRC, there's a very helpful explanation at Mining Co.'s Penpals for Kids site.

Internet Relay Chat

KidsWorld - Purports to be the safest place for kids on the Internet. KidsWorld is allied with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and some law-enforcement organizations. The site links to a place where you can download IRC client software in order to get started chatting.

StarLink IRC Network - Bills itself as "a safe and helpful chat environment suitable for all members of the family," stating in its information section that it stands by and strictly enforces its charter. StarLink's monitored KidzChat is for children 7-17. There are also channels just for teens.

Parent Soup says it has IRC for kids (not just for parents about their kids), but after a lot of surfing through their chat pages, we couldn't find specific references to it. They're certainly not promoting it heavily.

Web sites for communicating kids
The Chatalyst - More for teenagers; parents will want to check out some of the rooms first, probably, because this site is undergoing "major reconstruction" and - at this writing - has no pages about rules, monitoring, or any other safety information. The URL is registered to a company in Omaha, NB.

Cyberkids and Cyberteens for those 13 and up - both by Mountain Lake Software, educational softwaremakers in San Francisco. A widely recognized and reviewed site that's been online since early on (late '94), Cyberkids was deemed "best of breed" by Yahoo! Internet Life. It offers Keypals (e-mail pen pals), discussion boards, and live chat. We can't find a page that discusses child safety (it may be past the registration page), but there is a privacy statement. Our favorite site by Mountain Lake is youngcomposers.com, where musicians can send and hear their own and one another's compositions.

FreeZone - FreeZone, registered to a new media company in Seattle, WA, has lots of communication forms - the Chat Box, E-Pals, Bulletin Boards, and Postcards - and manages them responsibly (with safety tips, a form for reporting offensive behavior, a privacy statement, and special information for parents and teachers). Chat is monitored, and board and "e-pal" messages are screened. When we logged into the Box on a Saturday afternoon, 91 people were chatting! There is open chat and "event chatting" (all-girls time, entertainment, homework help, etc.).

Headbone Zone - Headbone has a kids room, two teen rooms, and a game room where people can play an interactive game and chat at the same time (Christopher would like this!). Kids can chat wherever they feel comfortable, regardless of rooms' designated ages. The rooms are open 9 a.m. to 8 p.m., Pacific Time, which means the chat's monitored (this is good). :-) This site's owned by the Carlisle Sentinel newspaper in Carlisle, PA (we think this is a fairly new development).

KidChatters - This one's interesting. It doesn't put a "kid-zine" front up, but has a spare, serious look to it - apparently trying to sell its service to parents first (probably not an unwise strategy). KidChatters, a company out of Roanoke, TX (the domain name's only been registered since last September), is clearly building its business on being "kid-safe and family-friendly," calling its chat monitors "guardians."

Kidlink - The Kidlink Society is a non-profit organization in Saltrod, Norway, that aims to "get as many youth through the age [of] 15 as possible involved in a global dialog." Since the program started way back in May 1990, the society says more than 100,000 young people from 118 countries on all the continents have participated, mostly via e-mail but also via fax, video conferencing, and other media - even ham radio. The Web site downloads slowly because the server's far away, but it's available in 13+ languages (some compensation, maybe)!

KidsCom - has a "Find a KeyPal" feature for international e-mail penpals and "The Graffiti Wall," with chat walls for kids 11 and younger and 11-15 which are monitored round the clock. This is one of the older (they've been online almost three years now!), more high-traffic kids sites and a conscientious one, with the "Ad Bug" hanging around, to tell kids whenever they're looking at an ad, and a privacy-statement link right on the home page. The site's based in Milwaukee, WI.

Kids' Space Connection - Billed as "an international communication site for young ambassadors," it has a Penpal Box and discussion board called Kids' Village (discuss computers, art, nature, literature, people, science, sports). The site, based in New York, is sponsored by NTT, the Japanese telecommunications giant. There is a "Protect Kids!" page, but we could find no mention of any monitoring they're doing.

MaMaMedia - This site, for 5-10-year-olds, is just plain fun to mess around in. It places more emphasis on playing (or learning through play) and creating than on real-time communicating (kids can send e-mail to Jessie, Devin, and other members of the "M Gang"). Other activities include creating pages (and viewing other kids' creations), customizing the way the site looks to the user, surfing through the Sandwich Shop (MaMa's database of 2,000+ screened and reviewed Web sites), pick and contribute your own favorite Web sites, and a heck of a lot more. For information on safety, vision, the MaMaMedia "family," etc., click on "MaMaMedia's Safeguards for Kids" or the "Grownups" button right on the home page. BTW, when we asked MaMaMedia if there's a way for parents/teachers/homeschoolers to have quick access to that large database of site reviews, they said they were working on it. We hope it'll happen soon.

Mining Co.'s Penpals for Kids - Shauna Brunette, Mining Co.'s guide for this site, does a great job of explaining "IRC" (Internet Relay Chat), real-time communication over the Internet, which can also be described as the Internet version of AOL chat! The page includes descriptions of and links to the three kids-only networks on IRC: Kidsworld, Starlink, and Parent Soup. This site's own chat area is unmoderated, though, and it looks like Shauna can only stage chat events on weekends (we can sympathize!), so this is more a chat resource site than a chat site.

Purple Moon - A site just for girls (initially, ages 8-12), purple-moon.com is based on a lot of research about girls and technology. They've thought through the safety issue carefully, deciding to keep the site closed and self-contained, with no outside links. So there's no e-mail to peers out over the 'Net; all communication is via e-postcards sent among kids participating in the site. The site also automatically screens all postcard content for inappropriate language, requires parents to register with kids, and has a "safety alert" button throughout the pages of its "Share Central" section for girls to immediately notify Purple Moon if a postcard they've received makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe. Kids can't play on the Web much more safely than this these days; the possible downside is that she'll be in touch only with other participants in this one site. Other activities: collecting and sharing virtual treasures, creating one's own Web page, shopping, games, contests, and getting to know the site's interesting characters.

techno teen - A very hip-looking and -sounding site (out of the Dallas, TX, area) for teens only, it includes chat and a new "Keypals" board divided into "Guys" and "Gals" where teens can find e-mail pen pals. The chat area has two moderated chat rooms for open discussion (no particular topics).

* * * *

What has been your family's experience with chat and other online activities? Do you see positive as well as negative impact? Have you had to establish rules? We'd love to hear of your experiences and will publish them, with your permission, in Sage Extra!, our weekly missive for subscribers only. Please e-mail us at feedback@sageway.com.

Next month: Wrapping up the school year - how the Web worked for teachers, parents, and students this past year. What was your or your children's/students' one most successful use of the Web and your most disappointing? Please do e-mail us (at feedback@sageway.com).

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