Cyber Safety Smartz!
by Langwitches ~ February 5th, 2009. Filed under: Conferences, Internet Safety.
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Title: Cyber Safety Smartz!
Presenter: Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton
Description: Want to learn how to protect your students online? This is the session for you. Learn all about Cyber Safety.
Presenter started out with youtube video of I look so much cooler on Myspace, a song from Brad Paisely.
Internet Safety Technical Task Force released Enhancing
Internet is not as dangerous as the media is portraying.
Why do you talk to your students about Internet Safety: to keep THEM safe.
Start out with questions like:
- How many have a computer?
- How many are connected to the Internet?
- How many have e-mail, mySpace and Facebook account
- Where is your computer located?
- Have your parents talked to them about being safe online?
Take this quiz as a class together : SafeKids
Don’t include the following online:
- keep usernames generic
- do not make screen name sexually explicit or suggestive
- do not make your name gender specific
- avoid posting personal information
- hometown
- addresses
- name of school
- name of sports team
- sports numbers
- telephone numbers
- favorite hangout
- financial information
- marital status in chat rooms
- bulletin boards and profiles
My thoughts:
While I am listening to the presenter, I am wondering if all the information she is telling them NOT to put online and using scare tactics to “keep them safe” will be effective TODAY? I remember reading about and also teaching the same kind of advice to my students, but that was OVER 5 YEARS AGO!!
Can we really teach the same things about Online Safety today?
- It seems to be INEVITABLE that our tweens and teens will be on Facebook, mySpace and online networking places and an earlier age.
- We want to encourage our children to become tech savvy and internet literate. Giving them their own laptop to be creative, literate, stay in touch with friends and family is something GOOD and should be encourage. Info available anytime and anywhere applies to kids too. So how to combine that with “Family computer only in a central place”. For younger students yes, but what about tweens and teens?
- We need to create new advice and tips that MAKE sense to these kids and that they will be able to follow while they are still allowed to participate safely in the online spaces that they socialize in.
What are your thoughts on REAL advice for today’s kids to stay safe online. Forget the scare tactics, forget to limit their exposure to the online world, forget pretending that when you keep them in a walled garden without allowing them to spread their wings, they will magically know how to fly on their own when they are at their friends house , with their internet cell phones, game consoles or head off to college.
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February 5th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
I couldn’t agree with your impressions any more! Why use the old “stranger danger” routine with these kids. They know too much, they have been exposed too early in their lives to the technology. If we could only get to them sooner to teach them how to be “safe” by making sure they know how to correctly set their privacy settings on their social networking sites, or letting them know to choose a user name properly. Those are the lessons we need to be teaching. We need to let them know it is OK to go online, but need better real life skills.
February 5th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
I think what needs to happen most is to simply start the conversation about safety WITH THE KIDS…not AT THEM. I just talked about this with the faculty at my school and most teachers don’t feel comfortable broaching the topic because many don’t feel equipped to answer questions and recognize the kids know more than they do. I think if we just start the dialogue with our students, find out what they think is acceptable and talk about what they are currently doing without drumming up fear, that they will open up to this idea that the internet is place where they must use caution as they navigate and create. Students are so used to hearing about the “predators” and other unseen dangers harped on by adults that they have written that off as one more thing we are trying to use to scare them and keep them from exploring the internet’s potential for their lives, both socially and academically. Make sense? There’s a lot more to say but I am late for an internet predator scare seminar with our students! LOL…kidding!
Thanks for the post and the thoughts.
Jeff
@jrichardson30