Journal 5

Article: “How to Fight the New Bullies” by Rosalind Wiseman From Parade.com (Feb 25)

This is a great article for educators, future educators, and parents. The advice about cyberbullying is important because, like so many issues affecting the learning process, it isn’t going to call attention to itself. We have to be proactive and active about seeking out these problems. The link to www.wiredsafety.org is especially useful. Parents should definitely check this out. I have a 14 year old daughter and I just now let her have a computer in her room for doing homework. But, of course, to a teenager a computer is a communications device, a connection to her social network. So, I come in regularly when her door is closed to do homework and look over her shoulder so she knows I care enough to check. That’s not mistrust.

Question 1: What is on the wiredsafety.org site for Internet safety?

I checked out wiredsafety.org and took the Parents link. There were links to answers to a lot of questions that parents probably have about what their kids are doing online. There is “How can I tell if my child is communicating with an Internet predator?” And “Is there software I can use to track what my kids are saying and doing online?” And “What if I find out my child is a cyberbully?” There are many more like that.

I followed the question about Internet predators and found an article from a column called “Ask Parry” where he described things to look for in a teen to determine how at-risk they are. It started general, like “naïve kids between 11 and 15” and got more and more specific, like: do they have names of people in their buddy list that they don’t know personally, and do they have a web site or an online profile? Look over these things that your teen is sharing with the world and see if there is anything suggestive, or remarks about a “love” or someone special you don’t know about. Obviously, there should be no personally identifiable information in their profile, for example, no addresses, not even “a picture of them in front of their school with the name” of the school showing. The author also suggests that if you have reason not to trust your child, install some monitoring software on their computer, like from Spectorsoft.com. There’s more information about what to look for on the child’s cell phone and even their video game player.

Question 2: What is the greatest risk our children face online?

Next I checked out the wiredsafety.org “Educators and librarians” section. There they have links to online safety information for teachers a tutorial on cyber safety, and online safety information for librarians. There is also a PDF file in Spanish or English for parent information. The online safety link goes to another great site, wiredkids.org that has information on all aspects of kids’ use of the Internet, not just safety. This website reminds you that although the Internet isn’t safe enough to let kids go there unsupervised, there are lots of reasons to use the Internet. Wiredsafety.com says the “greatest risk our children face online is lack of access”.