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This is great information to distribute at your next PTA meeting! The MySpace folks put control back in the hands of parents with their new ParentCare Software, a free, simple software tool designed to help parents safeguard their teens. ParentCare helps parents determine whether a child has a MySpace profile and validates the age, user name, and location listed by the teen. Currently in beta form and available for Windows users only. Both MySpace and IKeepSafe provide links to the download. The IKeepSafe site provides an additional flash video explaining the software. It is located at: http://www.ikeepsafe.org/parentcare/index.php

2nd in the CyberCop Series, AIRDOGS was designed to show teenagers that online crimes have lifelong legal and social consequences for teens and their families. In the game, Luke is a teenager who shows great promise as a snowboarder. He needs money for gear and training, so he begins to counterfeit software in his basement. Players collect data and evidence to catch Luke's boss, who is the ringleader of the operation. The message of Air Dogs is clear: theft and extortion are crimes, whether you're 16 or 60. Available both as a home edition and a school edition. [Windows and Mac OSX versions available]

MISSING, from Web Wise Kids, is designed to SHOW rather than TELL children about online safety. It's a fun and positive way to teach children how to avoid danger on the Internet. The interactive software adventure tells the story of Zack, a kid in Vancouver, Canada who forms an online friendship with Fantasma. This guy is so cool - he has an online magazine about beach life in California and he sends Zack great stuff, like graphic arts and software. Little does Zack know that he is a predator. After Zach agrees to go to San Diego to be with Fantasma, players work with a detective to find and rescue Zack and arrest Fantasma. Available both as a home edition and a school edition. [Windows and Mac OSX versions available]. Note: Local middle school science teachers have successfully worked this program into their science curriculum since solving the game involves researching and collecting clues.

Appropriate web etiquette (netiquette) and web safety are vital for building a strong web community. This is a lesson plan that teachers can use to introduce key concepts to their students as they introduce them to the Think.com community. Use this model lesson as designed, change it to fit your needs, or create your own.

Patrick Woessner's post on Digital Citizenship\nLast week I began unfolding the four "themes" that will guide our 1:1 Tablet PC implementation:\n\n * Information Management and Research\n * Digital Citizenship\n * Communication and Collaboration in a Global World\n * Creativity, Critical Thinking, and Design\n

Excellent post discussing the elements of digital citizenship.

Excellent blog post about the elements of digital citizenship from an educator. This makes a case about what should be done and how.

Debbie created the Adina's Deck film for her master's thesis in the Learning, Design and Technology program at Stanford. See: http://www.adinasdeck.com

Fabulous School Assembly Program! Although the team is based in the San Francisco Bay Area, they travel and give presentations nationwide. They bring a sense of balance to all of the predator-based talks given by law enforcement. The creators of this project are graduates of Stanford's Learning, Design & Technology program and also have a background in film making. They have won numerous awards at local, national and international film festivals for their work and were a huge hit at the California League of Middle Schools Conference, last Fall.

You can see a video clip of Adina's Deck at: adinasdecktrailer

School districts are improving their physical security, but they might be neglecting the security of their computer infrastructure, if the results of an annual survey are any indication. The average physical safety rating of K-12 school districts improved by 39 percent over 2007, while the average cyber safety rating declined by 25 percent during the same time period, according to CDW-G's "2008 School Safety Index," which is designed to mark the current state of K-12 school safety.

Experts warn users to be careful about what they post...and download Using those cool little applications designed to enhance social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook can make personal information as public as posting it on a billboard.Trouble is, most students (and educators) never have a clue.

Based out of NYC, the Global Kids Digital Media Initiative is a series of interrelated programs designed to support teenagers to think critically about the role of digital media in their lives and document their experiences in various media. It is supported by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

UC Berkeley study administered by the Institute for the Study of Social Change and funded by the MacArthur Foundation. The complete findings on three years of ethnographic work [22 different case studies of youth engagement with new media] will be published in Summer 2008. The project has three general objectives. The first objective is to describe kids as active innovators using digital media, rather than as passive consumers of popular culture or academic knowledge. The second objective is to think about the implications of kids innovative cultures for schools and higher education, and engage in a dialogue with educational planners. The third objective is to advise software designers about how to use kids innovative approaches to knowledge and learning in building better software. The research focuses on learning and cultural production outside of schools: in homes, neighborhoods, after school, and in recreational settings.

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.

The Entertainment Software Association has put together a comprehensive web site on intellectual property geared for K-5 and middle school students. Through hands-on learning activities, students explore the significance of intellectual property in their everyday lives. There are suggestions for integrating content with classroom curriculum, teacher's guides, reproducible worksheets and Powerpoint templates. All of the activities are designed to raise copyright awareness and build respect for intellectual property.

Designed as a research development tool to help students decide how to isolate the important facts in a body of text, this note-taking tool is great for summarizing and paraphrasing practice.

The primary goal of the Digital Youth Network Program is to develop a model program that enables urban youth to become discerning new media consumers and fluent media producers.To be full citizens today, youth must be engaged, articulate, critical and collaborative. Youth must become creators - designers, builders & innovators - who can envision new possibilities. Youth must also be able to organize, navigate and judge the large amounts of information and media to which they now have access. Full citizens today must be reflective thinkers who are committed to personal and community improvement.

Digizen.org's documentary film on Cyberbullying produced by Childnet International. Includes teacher's guide and lesson plan. The film is based on a composite of real events using professional actors. It depicts the story of a teenager who becomes the target of bullying via the Internet and by his mobile phone. The film shows a number of ways that cyberbullying can occur, who it involves, and how it can affect different people (including the teacher, who is in this film also subject to humiliation).The film and teacher's guide are designed for classroom or assembly use.

CTAP Region IV has designed this collection of Administrator Resources specifically with the needs of school administrators in mind. Administrator Resources cover 6 vital areas:
1. Legal Issues
2. Student Misbehavior in Cyberspace: MySpace, YouTube, Facebook
3. Cybersafety and School Board Policy Statements
4. Cyberbullying Documentation: Incident Reports/Review Process
5. Articles Related to Internet MisUse in the Schools
6. Materials for PTA Presentations

Power will soon belong to those who can master a variety of expressive human-machine interactions. Already, various thinkers about the future have proposed a number of candidates for the designation "twenty-first-century literacy." That is, what are the key skills humans must possess in order to be considered literate?

Define the Line is an awareness program designed to educate students about using commercial software legally, respecting copyrighted works online and understanding the impact of software theft on all of us. Sponsored by the Business Software Alliance (BSA).

For kids, bullying by mobile phone or PC is a real and growing problem. This NCH and Tesco Mobile sponsored site is designed to help teachers, young people and parents understand and prevent text bullying.