Internet safety: Whose job to teach kids about it?

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2010/0226/Internet-safety-Whose-job-to-teach-kids-about-it

I thought this was a pretty interesting article. It never occurred to me that teaching Internet safety wasn’t everyone’s responsibility! If students are using the Internet in school, then it should be mandatory to include cyber-security and cyber-ethics discussions in every classroom that uses the technology. Parents are not exempt from the responsibility either, regardless of how much their child uses the Internet at home.

I think it’s a shame that adults are arguing over responsibility about an issue with such serious consequences. In this case, no one should make any assumptions that another party is doing the job. Redundant warnings (from home and school) will only reinforce the importance of responsible Internet use.

According to a survey referenced in the article, only about a quarter of teachers, administrators and technology coordinators addressed Internet safety issues such as how to respond to online harassment and the seriousness of sexting –those numbers are entirely too low and considering how long we have been hearing stories of Internet abuse, I’m really surprised that there hasn’t been a strong nationwide movement. The article also points out that setting up filters is not enough – students can find their way around those. So it’s important to talk frequently with students on the subject.

Nancy Willard is the director of The Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use which is a website that is dedicated to issues concerning technology safety and houses many valuable articles, professional resources and cyber-bully specific resources that can help parents and teachers get involved with Internet abuse prevention and intervention.

This is definitely an issue where educators, parents and students alike need to step up and take responsibility.

Teaching for the 21st Century

Watch the Birdie!

No Comments please, this isn’t my homework blog on social networking - Scroll down to "Running in Place" for my homework blog.

Over the past decade I’ve heard a lot of people, myself included, brandish the self-diagnosed label of A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder). Do we really have A.D.D or do we just lack discipline and/ or focus? Okay, now put that aside for a minute because I don’t want to ponder that right now. What I do want to air is that a chronic habit of “following shiny objects” can be detrimental to a tight schedule if you’re surfing the net with a purpose in mind. Here’s an example:

Tom very thoughtfully embedded some Twitter tutorials and other links on our Techfusion310 wiki. I didn’t find Twitter as intuitive as blogging, RSS-ing and Google-Reading, so I decided to take a few minutes to review the resources. I watched both videos and then noticed the link about hashtags (I am resisting the inclination to embed the link because I want you to stay here!) I had questions about hashtags so I clicked on the link. About 7 seconds later I was looking at this picture --> --> -->

Question: Why would Tom send me here to learn about Twitter?

Answer: He didn’t. He sent me to a blog about Twitter which had a link to this page that caught my attention and I saw the little birdies and clicked on them because, my friends, I am a chronic shiny-object-follower!

My Essential Question: Will a little less caffeine and a little more focus keep me from blowing my deadlines?

Running in Place

I have a passion for organizing. Colored paper, highlighters, sticky notes, bins, boxes (labeled) and shelving …these are a few of my favorite things. Why? I like the uniformity, yes, but the real reason is because I am a Type-A personality. I don’t like losing things and I don’t like spending a lot of time finding things.

This is why I’ve jumped into educational social networking with both feet – because it took what I was already doing and supersized it. The promise of cross-referenced searchable, bundled tags lured me to the rim of the social networking vortex like a shiny object lures a fish, but what I found when I got there reached far beyond my expectations.

In Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms, Will Richardson explains how to use RSS feeds to serve as alerts when students have updated their blogs. This saves the teacher time in that he/she can review homework entries when they’re submitted without having to search manually for individual student updates (p 77) Using this model, I set up RSS feeds to several of my classmates’ blogs as well as a few professionals in the outside world in hopes of starting my own PLN.

I follow the author of our book, Will Richardson as well as several other edu-techno-junkies. They don’t know it, but they've been helping me with my homework for EDUC 310 and 325 for the last few weeks. They’re also laying the groundwork for my career as a teacher. I’m already gaining valuable insight, tips, and tricks of the trade, and I haven’t even logged any classroom hours yet. Through Google Reader the RSS feeds alert me when one of my classmates or cyber-mentors updates their blogs and then I can participate in a conversation with the author and other readers by posting comments.

Many of my cyber-mentors have links to Delicious which is what I use for my bookmarking cite. I have included Steve Dembo and Will Richardson in my Delicious Network. If I’m searching for a particular tag, “free education software,” for instance, I can limit my search to include only those bookmarks tagged by myself and members of my social network. Assuming that my cyber-mentors are bookmarking judiciously, my search will return a manageable list of worthwhile resources to check out. This saves me time and that makes me happy!

The downside? My role in my social network feels somewhat voyeuristic. I read the blogs of others and search through their bookmarks, but I feel like I have very little to contribute. I have asked a few questions and received a few answers, but I am lacking the feeling of satisfaction that comes from playing the game rather than watching from the sidelines. For now I will continue to rove and collect what I can. In time I know that this will change, but for now I’m all revved up and running in place!

You can visit my Delicious site, my RSS feeds and view my cyber-mentor blogs by clicking on the links at the right. For additional blogs, search for EDUCATION and BLOG under my Delicious bookmarks.