Internet Safety

More and more we find ourselves faced with challenges beit within the classroom or outside of the classroom. Internet Piracy is one of the areas that certainly concerns me as well as many others. How can I as a future eductor protect my students from those that look to feed off of those that are innocent?

One way is teaching responsibility within the classroom, acceptable practices both agreed upon by parents, administrators, teachers, and students in order to manage themselves online in order to further develop the Digital Generation. One website that I found to be extremely helpful in allowing educators as well as parents, law enforcements, and those looking to protect our students from those looking to prey on the innocent to reach this goal is through http://www.wiredkids.org/ . This website is set up for any age group to keep children safe online. It is written in a way that would be engaging to students (catering to those in their teens and under.) It also has an advice column managed by the students to other students, similiar to that of a peer to peer.

Another website that was very interesting was http://www.safekids.com/. This website tended to be towards the parents and the active participation of families on the internet. Posting responsibly is one of the things that the site really focuses on. It also help parents to enlist tools and web chats with other parents to ensure their childs safety.

But more importantly; parents and teachers need to continue to keep the line of communication open. All to often in our busy days, parents tend to overlook the face to face time with their children. Start the practice now and make it part of their everyday occurence, not just when there is something that "needs" to be discussed. Open family discussions should be as easy as getting online... 1....2.....3....