Cyber Safety

Greetings!

Most of the parents of our kids have had computers or access to computers nearly all their lives but it is surprising how many of them do not realize that cyberspace is not a safe place for their children.

We had a program this past week for parents on keeping their children safe online and about 20 parents came. Not twenty families, 20 parents. One teacher commented that if it had been a basketball game, they all would have been there. Our principal pointed out that if we want the children to be safe online, we need to be teaching them.

If this sounds like your school, you may need to arm yourself with information. Here are some topics that we need to be teaching our children.
1. Online safety – Facebook, chat rooms, e-mail, Twitter, and more.
2. Cell phone use
3. Netiquette
4. Cyber-bullying
5. Computer safety

If you aren’t teaching or discussing these subjects with your students, please find some time to do this. Materials are available for free from the internet and books. Check with your local public schools and see what is happening there and what materials they are using. You may be able to get in on their order or they may even provide materials for you. Check with the local public library for materials.

I used this website last year when teaching this to grades 5 – 8 during library lessons. http://www.netsmartz.org/Parents I showed a couple of the videos to the kids. One was called “Tracking Teresa” and it showed how quickly and easily one can find out information about a person online. I also showed one called “You Photo Fate” about a girl who sent a ‘hot pic’ to her boyfriend and how quickly and easily the photo can travel especially to places that the girl would not want her photo to travel. We also discussed the fact that the photo was child pornography and the ramifications of having a photo like that on your phone.

I urge you to go to the Netsmartz.org website and look around. There is a ton of age appropriate information there and it is easy to present.

I also hope that if you have school or classroom computers that can access the internet that you have on file an acceptable use policy for each child that uses the computer. If you do not, please consider implementing this as soon as possible. I would be happy to send you a copy of the one we use for our school that you can use as a template.

Let’s keep our children as safe as we can online.

Audrey