Databus Issue: 2006 4 10/17/2006
Keeping Students Cybersafe
Bonnie Marks Executive Director, CTAP Region IV
PDF
As IT departments have become more efficient with Internet filtering, firewalls, proxies and spam blockers, the user end of the security issue has come to the forefront in schools in a new way—cyber safety. Cyber safety covers the safe and responsible use of online technology—ranging from the content of a site on a social network, such as MySpace.com, to the blogs or instant messaging of a cyber-bully.
Last spring, CTAP Region IV received a grant from AT&T to produce a cyber safety poster. The poster was designed as a companion poster to the CTAP IV Information Literacy poster, which gives guidance for students when they are gathering information on the Internet. In the new poster, guidance is provided in identifying possible cyber safety problems and presenting positive actions that can resolve them.
CTAP’s Cyber Safety poster covers six areas of concern: personal information, cyber predators, inappropriate content, social networks, intellectual property and cyber-bullying. Some consistent themes began to emerge as the poster was developed. One was the importance of being aware that information students share online does not identify their personal locale. Another was the need for students to be able to recognize inappropriate information or behavior and avoid it. And, the third major theme was to help students know how to report and discuss a problem situation with a trusted adult.
The Cyber Safety Poster can be downloaded as a PDF file at:
Nancy E. Willard, Director of the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use,
• Knowledge about potential dangers or concerns and expectations or standards for responsible behavior.
• Effective decision making skills that include being able to recognize situations presenting concerns and knowing appropriate or effective responses to such situations.
• Motivation and the self control to behave in a safe and responsible manner.
Parents and teachers are familiar with providing children with safe and supervised activities in the “real world” and training them in safe and responsible behavior. When they begin their school careers, we let them know who not to talk to and who to go to when they need help. During the elementary years, they are at an age when they are comfortable discussing problems with their teacher or parent. In the teen years, however, they are often reluctant to approach a parent or teacher with a problem and just telling them to talk to a “responsible adult” isn’t enough. We need to help the student identify a person they are willing to go to with their concerns.
Since children use the Internet after school and at home, cyber safety cannot stop when students leave the classroom. Parents need to provide a safe and supervised Internet environment at home. Elementary school childrens’ use of the Internet should be limited to safe areas of the Internet. When they need to further explore the Internet, it should be in a highly structured and supervised setting. Nancy Willard states that towards the end of elementary school or early in middle school is “the best time to begin to more fully instruct students about safe and responsible online behavior.”
A problem that happens more often after school, but sometimes through the use of school networks, is cyber bullying, which occurs when a student is harassed or threatened by another using the Internet or other interactive technologies. According to a survey done by wiredsafety.org, 42 percent of students say they have been bullied online and 53 percent admitted they’ve said something deliberately mean or hurtful to another person online.
The cyber bully often feels invisible and immune from any consequences for their actions. There is an issue of disinhibition created by the Internet, with the student sitting at their computer feeling like “you can’t see me and I can’t see you.” With no tangible feedback, there can be a sense of no harm being done. Students need to learn that their actions do affect those they cannot see and that there are consequences to their actions. Those who have been bullied need to learn strategies and steps they can take to end the bullying.
CTAP will be sharing information and resources about cyber safety at workshops and events in their regions. In Region IV, Larry Magid and Anne Collier, the authors of MySpace Unraveled, will be presenting at an event designed for teams of educational technology and school safety leaders. Their book, designed to serve as a parent’s guide to teen social networking, is also an excellent resource for teachers and school administrators. The authors have also founded Blog- Safety.com, a forum for parents, teens, and educators to discuss safe blogging and social networking.
A new effort focused on Cyber Safety was launched at the state level, with a Cyber Safety Summit held in Sacramento on October 18th. Under leadership of the California Department of Consumer Affairs, the Summit was sponsored in partnership with many organizations, including the Association of California School Administrators, the California School Boards Association, and the California State PTA. The Summit featured panel presentations and interactive workshops for parents, educators and community leaders. Information about this one-day event is available at www.cybersafety.ca.gov.
As technology becomes more and more accessible, educators will continue to provide guidance and leadership to students. It’s not just the K-12 environment being effected by cyber safety issues. This year, for the first time, new students at the University of California, Berkeley, were required to take a safety-focused workshop before receiving Internet use privileges in their dorm rooms. The workshop included an educational video made my students covering the perils of drawing unwanted attention through social networks like MySpace and Facebook.
