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Interview with the original Net-mom
Jean Armour Polly talks about her #1 selling Internet and children's book. by Melissa Burgos Brown SCR*TEC It started to look like kids might be kept off the Internet until their 18th or 21st birthday. I thought that was a terrible shame for two reasons. One would be because kids wouldn't have access to the really good information that was on the Net. The second reason was that the Internet wouldn't have access to kids. --Jean Armour Polly |
 ean Armour
Polly, the original Net-mom, is an internationally known expert on the Internet
from the family's point of view. As an author, librarian, public speaker, and
consultant, Jean has worked with such clients as Disney Online, the Children's
Television Workshop, and America Online. She is co-founder and moderator emerita
of PUBLIB, which is the oldest and largest Internet discussion list for public
librarians. She is also known for coining the phrase "surfing the Internet," when
she wrote an article by that title in 1992. Jean is the author of the best-selling book, The Internet Kids & Family Yellow Pages, which is now in its third edition. There you will find a directory of over 3,500 of the best children's resources on the Internet. Here she discusses her book and her criteria for good and safe sites, her secrets to Internet searching, and her thoughts about Internet safety. |
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What gave you the idea
to write this book? I was a public librarian for 16 years and I was used to the types of questions kids and parents had when they came to the reference desk. In 1992, I left that career and became an Internet Ambassador for an Internet service provider and a regional service provider in New York state. Part of my job there was looking at the big picture of what was happening with the Internet in education. I became really concerned because Senator Exon had started making a lot of noise about how awful the Internet was. His view was that the Internet was just not a good place for kids at all. It started to look like kids might be kept off the Internet until their 18th or 21st birthday. I thought that was a terrible shame for two reasons. One would be because kids wouldn't have access to the really good information that was on the Net. The second reason was that the Internet wouldn't have access to kids. This medium could be used to hear the kids' voices and help people understand what it was that kids were interested in and going through and creating. I was very concerned, especially about that second point, the idea of kids as publishers. I tried to talk my friends into writing a book to show the worthwhile points about the Internet and the sites then, but I couldn't talk anyone into it. It took about two years, but in 1995 I wrote a book proposal and convinced Osborne that they wanted to publish it. The book is now in its third edition. |
| There are over 3,500 sites
listed in your book. What are your criteria for good and safe sites? I have a selection policy that you can find in the front of the book, as well as on my Web site. First, I look for sites that have some authority behind them. For example, I'll look for a NASA site rather than "Bob's pretty good planets" page, out of his dorm room.The problem with "Bob's pretty good planets" page is that Bob graduates and the system administrators take his site down. So I look for sites that have some stability, like a Library of Congress or a Smithsonian Institute site. I also look for sites that really have some good information. Some sites have a lot of flash and animation and music, but don't have a lot of text that really backs up the things that you're seeing. Next, I look for sites that have current dates that are within six months of the publication of the book. I like to know that someone's taking care of these sites. I also look for outstanding organizational tools and navigational tools, and sites that are within an eighth grade or below reading level. Finally, I look for things that really knock my socks off because I'm not interested in every single topic that I write about, but if the site made me interested and made me want to learn more, then it did get on my list. I looked at every site myself. I have a research team that helps me, but it doesn't get into the book unless I like it and I've explored it at length. |
| Can Web authors suggest
their sites to you? Do you take requests for topics? I get site suggestions all the time. People even offer me money to get in the book and of course, that's not the point. We're a consumer reports type of publication and we just don't do that. In fact, if you go to my Web site you'll see that there's a section that I ask people to read before they even bother to write to me. You cannot look at every single person's page. What I tell people is, if you are the best I will find you. |
| You have a "best of the
Net" list with the top 100 sites listed. Is there an overall top ten
or is that asking too much? No, there's not an overall top ten. Although, there are some sites that are my personal favorites like Kids' Space. I just think that the woman that runs it operates out of a love for kids and for music and for her topic. Her love for the Internet and her passion for her work just comes right through in her Web site. I also like KidsClick a lot. It's a search engine put together by teachers and librarians. I also like Ask Jeeves for Kids. Those are some of my personal favorites, but there are so many! The first edition came out in '96. In those days, it was difficult to find things aimed right at kids, so what we would look for were beginners' sites on all these topics. These days, it's gotten easier to find sites that are aimed right at kids. Not only that, but the demographic has gotten much lower now so now you see sites that are aimed at two-year olds and four and five-year olds, whereas before you didn't see that. It's been interesting to see how many more things are available for kids. Today, the question is not, "can I find it on the Internet," but "who do I trust to tell me about it?" |
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"What I'm looking for is sites that, not only are Internet experiences,
but also extend the experience beyond sitting at the keyboard. For younger
kids, you use the Internet for information, it's more of a tool rather
than a destination. The destination is sitting on the floor and fooling
with stuff when you're that young." |
We often have a hard time
finding sites for really little kids (preschoolers - age 7) and their
parents. Some people say that little kids shouldn't be on the Internet
at all. Given proper safety precautions for this young audience, what
do you think about them using the Net? I think that little tiny kids can do things on the computer only in balance with them sitting on the kitchen floor banging on a pot with a wooden spoon. That's what I try to remind people, because parents have put all of this money toward this computer and they want to get some value out of it. They want to get their kids onto the computer and onto the Net as soon as they can. But it's important not to ignore the normal stuff of throwing food around and playing with clay and that type of thing. Kids are just interested in cause and effect. I mean, they're interested with the word processor because, you hit a key and something happens. It doesn't have to be connected to the Internet. There's some interesting sites especially at the Children's Television Workshop site. I do best of the Web reviews for them and their demographic is ages two to eight. I've found a number of things that are okay for little tiny tots. What I'm looking for is sites that, not only are Internet experiences, but also extend the experience beyond sitting at the keyboard. For younger kids, you use the Internet for information, it's more of a tool rather than a destination. The destination is sitting on the floor and fooling with stuff when you're that young. |
| Do you recommend chat sites?
What ages do you think are appropriate for chatting? Kids love chat sites, I've got a middle schooler. I know kids will spend a lot of time in them. The only ones that I recommend are Freezone and Headbone. They seem to be more vigilant about monitoring content. If you're interested in that type of thing you might look into something like AOL Instant Messenger where you're just going one-to-one with another kid. You don't need an AOL account to use Instant Messenger. I know my son uses that. In your book you mention a lot of search engines. Which are the most helpful to you, to parents, and kids, and why? I think AJ Kids is really good and KidsClick. Those would be the two that I think parents should definitely know about. Although, now we see every search engine is trying to come out with it's family friendly filtered search. I haven't looked at every single one of those yet, but the last time I checked them out, which was August, they really were not quite ready for primetime yet. In fact, I think they gave people a false sense of security and they really weren't very useful at all, as far as targeting what it was that you wanted. In my book, if you look under the Internet area, I do talk about search engines and the six or seven hot tips for Internet search strategies that people should know about. |
| Do you recommend that kids
use search engines or just the safe search engines? It depends on the kids and the parents and how freaked out they'll get when they come up with something that's not really about toys. There's a lot to be said for safe harbors in some families and there's a lot to be said for open access in some families. Parents just need to know that they can't just set their children up in front of the computer and walk away from it when the Internet is connected. It's not like a Nintendo game or something. And even with Nintendo or any video game, you've got to be sure your kids aren't playing something like Mortal Combat or one of these games that may be much too violent for your particular case. I can see my kid's computer from my office. All I have to do is turn around and I can see the screen. That's pretty much all of the filtering that we use here. We certainly talk about it a lot and he knows what the expectations are. In fact, if he does happen across something inappropriate he tells me about it because he knows that I collect instances of things that have been indexed badly. |
| You mentioned your Seven
Secrets of Internet Searching which appears in your book, which one
do you think is the most important and why? Probably the most important one is to read those help files. People never want to read the manual. The other important thing to keep in mind with the search engines is that they keep adding new features. You don't need to know boolean logic anymore on a lot of them. You can just use natural language. It's important to read the help files to learn how to ask the questions. The second one is checking the spelling. That's really important. The third one that people always forget is to make sure that you're searching on a "phrase" rather than each word individually. You're looking for all the words together "Martin Luther King," rather than Martin and Luther and King, but then, if they read the help files, they'll find that out. |
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"It's also a really good convincer if you're a teacher trying to convince
an administrator or conversely an administrator trying to convince a
teacher that the Internet is really a valuable thing." |
Lastly, why a book over
an online version of this? Because books you can carry around. Not everybody has the Internet at home, it's still a rare resource. If they can't get to a machine, maybe they're going to a public library or an Internet cafe, but maybe they only have an hour of time and they want to use that time really well. They can use the book to sort of pre-surf around and find some things that might be of use to them for their particular homework topic or recreational need. I hear from people who have found it really useful in homeschooling. These are some of the people who might not have a computer connection at home, but are going off to a public site to do their Internet surfing. It's also a really good convincer if you're a teacher trying to convince an administrator or conversely, an administrator trying to convince a teacher that the Internet is really a valuable thing. I think a book is a good thing and plus it's just fun to read in a way that only looking through a book and looking at the pages can be. But I'd love it if somebody bought the electronic rights! Bill Gates might be calling, who knows? He's probably on the other line right now! It would be nice to have it online. There's a CD that comes with the book. You can just click there, but if you do find a link that's broken you have to go to my online site and check the database to see if we've found where it is yet. So the CD is another step, but yes, we'd love to license it. |
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