Group items tagged

steps to protect children on the Internet

Facebook, the world's second-largest social networking Web site, will add more than 40 safeguards to protect young users from sexual predators and cyberbullies. The changes include banning convicted sex offenders from the site, limiting older users' ability to search online for subscribers under 18 and building a task force seeking ways to better verify users' ages and identities.

ThinkQuest Newswire Announcement: Students from 13 countries took top honors in this year's ThinkQuest International 2008 Competition. The competition is utilized by teachers to engage their students in developing critical skills for life and work in the 21st century.This year's winning teams collaborated in the research, writing and creation of websites on educational topics ranging from mathematics to promoting tolerance and preventing bullying.

ThinkQuest International 2008 included 972 teams from 60 countries and the winning entries included students from Argentina, Australia, Canada, China, Egypt, India, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Tunisia, United Kingdom, United States and Vietnam. Each team had approximately eight months to complete their final websites. The submissions were then reviewed by an international panel of volunteer judges who selected the winners in each of the three age divisions. The judges also awarded the "Global Perspectives" prize to the team best exemplifying respect for diversity and recognition of global interdependence.

How tech-obsessed iKids would improve our schools. One of the strangest things in this age of young people's empowerment is how little input our students have into their own education and its future. Kids who out of school control large sums of money and have huge choices on how they spend it have almost no choices at all about how they are educated -- they are, for the most part, just herded into classrooms and told what to do and when to do it.

Archives of past events. The Berkman Center's Interactive collection features conversations with and talks by leading cyber-scholars, entrepreneurs, activists, and policymakers as they explore topics such as: the factors that influence knowledge creation and dissemination in the digital age; the character of power as the worlds of governance, business, citizenship, and the media meet the Internet; and the opportunities, role, and limitations of new technologies in learning.

This research group out of Harvard includes Danah Boyd. Live web casts and chat. The Berkman Center's Interactive collection features conversations with and talks by leading cyber-scholars, entrepreneurs, activists, and policymakers as they explore topics such as: the factors that influence knowledge creation and dissemination in the digital age; the character of power as the worlds of governance, business, citizenship, and the media meet the Internet; and the opportunities, role, and limitations of new technologies in learning.

A 2007-2008 research study conducted by Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) reported several key findings that indicate children are logging on to the Internet at a very young age. Parental supervision of this computer activity, however, is generally lax. Not surprisingly, the study found that children are communicating with friends, peers, and others online in ways that show a lack of knowledge in what is ethical, safe behavior.

Three teenagers aged 16 to 19 have been arrested in Hong Kong over a violent "rape video" that has been widely viewed on mobile phones and over the internet.

Nortel LearniT is an initiative of Nortel Community Relations to prepare teachers, students, and learners of all ages to develop 21st century skills that will provide a basis for their ongoing engagement in learning and personal achievement. Their lesson plans and guides include several lessons on cybersafety, covering topics like spam, hoaxes, cyberbullying, online predation and analyzing web sites to determine validity. The site is translated into multiple languages, including Spanish.

Children are among the most frequent users of the Internet, yet searching and browsing the web can present many challenges. Studies over the past two decades on how children search were conducted with finite and pre-determined content found in CD-ROM applications, online digital libraries, and web directories. However, with the current popularity of the open Internet and keyword-based interfaces for searching it, more critical analysis of the challenges children face today is needed. This paper presents the findings of an initial study to understand how children ages 7, 9, and 11 search the Internet using keyword interfaces in the home.

How teens manage their online identities and personal information in the age of MySpace

Released in April 2007, this research analyzes results from a survey of 935 teens (age 12-17) and findings from focus groups conducted by the Pew Internet & American Life Project. It explores questions of teen online privacy protection from several perspectives: by looking at the choices that teens make to share or not to share information online, by examining what they share, by probing for the context in which they share it and by asking teens for their own assessment of their vulnerability.

How teens manage their identity online (63% believe that someone could identify them from the info provided even if they don't put personal details like address and phone).

Flash animation games in a aquarium theme from NetSafe.org [New Zealand] that teach kids [Age 5-11] about online privacy and cybersafety. Includes downloadable lesson plans for teachers

WiredSafety provides help, information and education to Internet and mobile device users of all ages. We help victims of cyberabuse ranging from online fraud, cyberstalking and child safety, to hacking and malicious code attacks. We also help parents with issues, such as MySpace and cyberbullying.

Privacy Playground: The First Adventure of the Three Little CyberPigs was developed by the Media Awareness Network. In this game, designed for ages 8-10, the CyberPigs play on their favourite Web site and encounter marketing ploys, spam and a close encounter with a not-too-friendly wolf. The purpose of the game is to teach kids how to spot online marketing strategies, protect their personal information and avoid online predators. The accompanying Teacher's Guide explains how to play the game, gives background information on the issues of online marketing, spam and children's privacy and provides activities and handouts for classroom use.

Written by attorney/educator, Nancy Willard and tailored for parents.Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens is primarily a parenting book - parenting for the Information Age. Generally, parents do a good job of raising their children to make safe and responsible choices in the Real World. But now, children and teens have the ability to interact with people from throughout the world and to access a wide range of material that may or may not be appropriate for them. So what is a caring parent to do?

Internet Safety site that has won some awards -- I want to know the balance of this information and if it shows all aspects of the issue. I would love to have someone do a full review on this one.

This site is full of information about the scary side of the Internet -- it talks about predators and what they look like. It also shows predator warning signs, which could be interesting. I'm curious to see if there is balance and where their facts come from. This is targeted to age 10 and up. There are games and other things in here. I'd like to know some people who have been through this material. It won an award in 2007

Note: this is the same site I posted earlier -as THINKQUEST AWARD WINNER 2007: Internet Safety, Keeping it Real." This Thinkquest Project does focus on the dark side of the Internet, perhaps excessively, our CTAP team thought. But it was created by 6th graders and they are to be commended for their effort. Anyone else here a Thinkquest judge? Judging starts today, actually. It's grueling but a rewarding effort. And you get to see some pretty cool stuff!

The challenge for education "How do we handle the abundance of inputs and outputs available to our students given the scarcity of two major problems in our schools: Allowed / Accepted Channels of Access (number of computers per child, bandwidth, filtering, restrictions on publishing, etc...) and time. \n

Online social networking site for kids age 7 and younger. Connected with ownership of webkinz plush toy animals. Used in a classroom setting by Maria Knee, kindergarten teacher at Deerfield Community School in Deerfield, New Hampshire, who has been named this year's winner of the Kay L. Bitter Vision Award for Excellence in Technology-Based PK-2 Education. The award is given by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE®) to recognize PK-2 educators who demonstrate vision and creativity in a project or program that effectively integrates technology in the classroom.

This issue of Curriculum Connections provides educators with the tools to increase awareness about the problem of cyberbullying among their students. Each lesson introduces age appropriate information and skills that encourage youth to think critically about Internet communication, develop empathy for others, respond constructively to cyberbullying and online aggression and interact safely on the Internet. The resources in this edition of Curriculum Connections will be an important part of your school's broader efforts to foster an increased culture of e-safety and respect for differences among youth.

"NetSmartz is an Internet safety resource from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America that uses the latest technology to create high-impact educational activities for even the most tech-savvy kids of any age group."

Includes resources for parents, teachers, law enforcement and students.

Panwapa, which means "here on this earth" in the Tshiluba language, aims to foster the foundation for global citizenship and community activism in young children, ages 4 to 7. Featuring an entirely new group of Muppet characters, Panwapa consists of an interactive website, a DVD, and print materials that are available to children around the world in five languages -Arabic, English, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish. Sponsored by Sesame Street & Merrill Lynch.