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Internet Safety: Keeping your grandchildren safe on the Information Highway Dr. Debra Schwietert

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Overview of Workshop

School and the Internet A survey was conducted at South

Middle School. Students were asked questions about their web use. This Workshop will review the survey results and offer suggestions for teaching safe Internet behavior.

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Home and the Internet

Internet agreement - a place to start

Model for your agreement -Handout

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Actions for students Keep personal information private - don’t give out address,

phone, email, or post pictures that have identifiers on them. Newsworthy - always talk about anything that makes them

uncomfortable, talk about how you want them to deal with situations.

World at fingertips -never agree to meet or send pictures to people you have only met online without talking to adults.

Danger at fingertips - potluck! Don’t respond to inappropriate messages.

Don’t get scared - get informed! Talk about rules, time limits, and appropriate areas to visit.

Don’t give out passwords other than to family members -remind them to keep them private.

Check with adults before installing or downloading (emails). Be a good citizen, don’t break rules or be rude. Help adults learn about technology - computers, email,

Internet.

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Being the adult Get to know the services and web sites your grandchild visits.

If you don’t know how to access, have them show you. Set up reasonable boundaries and family rules. Make sure

you stick to them and monitor their activity (especially amount of time spent on computer.)

Do not overreact when a problem occurs, but rather find solutions to the problem and options so that it doesn’t reoccur.

Do not use the computer as an electronic babysitter. Use the computer for family activities and do things together. Get to know their online friends, just as you would get to know

their other friends. Get involved! Google your students’ name Check the History menu on your browser, make sure it is set

to the length of time you need, then make sure you check it.

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Setting firm boundaries Teens will push the limits until someone cares

enough to draw the line. Don’t apologize for limits, explain them. Teens are

old enough to know a little about the dangers of the world. They have experienced uncomfortable situations before and can relate.

Appeal to their sense of integrity. Character is who you are when no one is watching.

Reinforce the positive, try not to focus on the negative.

Build trust and respect into your relationship.

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Have fun! Nothing new Find a common interest Look for fun ways to use the computer together so that you

will have opportunities to model responsible behavior. Talk Alouds…

Example:State the problem: “Oh, we can’t copy this photograph from the

website, it is copyrighted, see?” [point to the copyright information]

Offer a suggestion how to solve that problem: “Let’s see if we can find a website that has copyright free photographs! Do you know how to search for that?” Let them show you what you know, watch how they work and correct them when they show irresponsible or immature behavior.

Use humor and remember they are still kids!

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Enjoy your grandchildren

Cherish every moment!Parents get more out of touch as

children get older: 1/3 of 13-17 yo say parents know very little/nothing about what they do on the Internet (Cox, 2006).

Speak their language. Email, IM, and cell phones.Talking about online behavior lowers risks. (Cox, 2006).

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South Web Use I

How often do you use the computer on a daily basis?

37%

37%

26%

A.less than1 hour/day

B.1 -2 hours/day

Other(pleasespecify)

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South Web Use II

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Risky Web Use - Over half said yes! (46 out of 90)

42%

21%

37%

A.Yes- using instant messaging (IM)

B.Yes - using email

C.Yes - using a chat room

How students communicated online with someone they had never met

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South Web Use III

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South Web Use IV

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Meeting Strangers

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Attachments

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Secrets

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Profiles

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Strangers!

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Girls more susceptible

More girls post pictures and profile information (Cox, 2006). Girls outnumber guys in posting pictures (54% vs 46%) and profile information (66% vs. 56%). By 16-17 yo girls 80% have posted a profile and 71% have uploaded pictures. (Cox, 2006).

15% girls said their parents know “everything” they did online vs. 7% of boys. (Cox, 2006).

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Families’ talking helps!

Children who say families have talked to them “a lot” have fewer pictures on the Internet. They also ignore more messages from unknown people, refuse to reply or chat, block unknown senders and report these things to trusted adults.

Child Internet behavior is related to the amount of conversations with adults (Cox, 2006).

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Messages from unknown senders

71% of 13-17 yo’s have received a message from someone they do not know (Cox, 2006).

Virtually all 13-17 yo’s have an email or IM address (Cox, 2006).

1/3 of teens have considered meeting someone they’ve only talked to online (Cox, 2006).

About 40% usually continue to chat with unknown people, more boys than girls (44% vs. 35%) (Cox, 2006).

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Links http://www.netsmartz.org/safety/videos/dr-protection.htm http://kids.yahoo.com/ Yahoo for kids, designed for ages 7 to 12. Sites are hand-picked to be

appropriate for children. Also, unlike normal Yahoo, searches will not bring back matched found by crawling the web, if there is no match from within the Yahooligan listings. This prevents possibly objectionable sites from slipping onto the screen. Additionally, adult-oriented banner advertising will not appear within the service. Yahooligans is the oldest major directory for children, launched in March 1996.

Ask Jeeves For Kids http://www.askforkids.com/ Ask Jeeves is a unique service where you enter a question, and Ask Jeeves

tries to point you to the right web page that provides an answer. At Ask Jeeves For Kids, answers have been vetted for appropriateness. Also, if Ask Jeeves cannot answer a question, it pulls results from various search engines in its metacrawler mode. At Ask Jeeves For Kids, no site that is on the CyberPatrol block list is supposed to be listed.

KidsClick! http://www.kidsclick.org/ Backed by librarians, KidsClick lists about 5,000 web sites in various

categories.Looksmart's Kids Directory http://search.netnanny.com/?pi=nnh3&ch=kids The Kids Directory is a listing of over 20,000 kid friendly

websites that were hand picked by employees of Looksmart subsidiary Net Nanny and vetted for quality. Looksmart also offers a safe search of the entire web, using Net Nanny software to filter Wisenut search results, as well as a free toolbar that uses the same service.

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Questions???

Open discussion time

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References Pappas, M. L. (2004). Management matters. Safety in a digital

environment. School Library Media Activities Monthly 21,4 40-41.

http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=2156191

Polly Klaas Foundation. (2007). Available March 14, 2007 at http://www.pollyklaas.org/internet-safety/pkfsummary.pdf

SafeKids.com. (2007). Available online 3/14/07 at http://www.safekids.com/contract.htm

Cox Communications. (2006). Teen Internet Safety Survey in Partnership with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Available on March 14, 2007 from: http://www.cox.com/TakeCharge/includes/docs/survey_results.ppt