Kenrick Josephs, Staff Writer

These three girls tinker on a laptop computer at Great Hut eco-tourism resort in Boston, Portland, in this 2005 file photo taken during a visit of students from the State University of New York. - File

It's back to school, so students will again be burning up the computer to complete homework, research, and projects.

The Internet is a powerful education resource tool, but there are also dangers that lurk there such as adult chat rooms, pornographic and other undesirable emails, and online predators who target children.

But parents can now monitor their kids without having to be there physically, to keep them away from dangers that kids may not immediately recognise.

Parents should teach their children never to give their personal information to people they meet online, especially in chat rooms and on bulletin boards. Online predators tend to ask children for face-to-face meetings, which are not safe. Such cases should be reported to a responsible adult.

Parental control softwares are the obvious choice for some parents as these programmes monitor the usage by the children. The most common is 'Net Nanny' by LookSmart.

Net Nanny allows parents to review activity logs regularly to see what the children have been doing on the machine.

Its time management and monitoring feature allows for tracking of the user logged in when a violation occurred. Use time management to ensure your children don't spend too much time on the Web.

While the Web can be a great educational tool, it can also become all-consuming, distracting your child from other important activities.

Set up Net Nanny to block the transmission of personal information. Due to a myriad of user risks - from online predators to Internet financial scams - it is very dangerous to share personal information online for children and adults.

Block access to applications that you don't want your child to use. You can choose to block any combination of file trading, instant messenger and game applications, using the applications tab in each user's profile.

Checks to local computer software shops for the availability of the software were unsuccessful but it can be ordered online at http://www.netnanny.com.