WizeNoze, a startup company aiming to curate age-appropriate safe and understandable content for school children, is to launch a white-label search solution in partnership with The London Grid for Learning (LGfL).
The project is amongst the first of its kind to offer a new method for safeguarded internet search. LGfL’s education-technology community will give their schools access to a curated content collection of trusted websites which give a large bank of suitable and reliable informational content. The search results will be matched to the Key Stages of the children in order to maximise understanding, giving children and teenagers access to trusted, safe and readable information.
The project is a response to concerns about the availability of inappropriate content to school children – A new study from researchers at the University of Oxford casts serious doubt on the effectiveness of internet filtering, suggesting that, while parents are reassured by adding filtering to their domestic gadgets, both the suppliers and consumers of inappropriate content can easily find ways around it. This can lead to children accessing content which can frighten and shock them, but even those seeking information for homework projects can often find sites of dubious educational value.
“Giving children access to safe, relevant and suitable content is a need expressed by many schools. Currently we are piloting a solution, developed by the startup WizeNoze, that is exactly doing this. Instead of filtering out all inappropriate content, we give them access to reliable information, matching the individual reading level of a child” said John Jackson, CEO of the LGfL.
By using a curated content collection with millions of pages to search information, children will not be disturbed or distracted by ‘noise’ of commercial websites, or worse, by disturbing content – Diane Janknegt, Founder and CEO of WizeNoze
“By using a curated content collection with millions of pages to search information, children will not be disturbed or distracted by ‘noise’ of commercial websites, or worse, by disturbing content”, says Diane Janknegt, Founder and CEO of WizeNoze. “Using our content collection can save children lots of time searching through irrelevant or manipulated search results, which are of more value to advertisers than to the child. And above all, it protects them from being confronted with harmful, inappropriate content.”
