Australian websites to get ratings for content, age

Websites originating in Australia will soon be subject to a rating system that will tell users whether the content is appropriate for children of different ages

You have to give the Australians’ credit.  But it’s a long time in the future when we are going to see standards of ratings across the Web.

Different websites do need some type of information to provide the visitor with some idea what audience the website targets.  As a teacher, I recall once creating a list of websites on the Middle East and ended up finding a website with some very violent images on it (blood and guts).  It seemed innocent, but it wasn’t obvious without some serious looking around.  With new websites appearing every day, it is becoming harder to know what websites are appropriate for the age grade we teach.  We definitely need to rate the content of websites for reading level as well as accuracy.  Is Wikipedia appropriate for middle school or high school?  Sometimes I think we expect a high school student to be able to read everything they see on the Internet for research purposes, when many sites are geared at college level students and adults.  I’ve even seen teachers who think seeing students struggle and get frustrated while researching as a positive thing.  But with so many kids dropping out, I’d argue otherwise.  We definitely wouldn’t do this to a student in our classroom by expecting them to read Chaucer or Faulkner without some scaffolding and support.