Group items tagged

This Web Wise Kids cell phone safety program for middle school children is titled It's Your Call. Based on true stories, it is an interactive game that allows users to play out difficult situations in the safety of cyberspace before they live them out in real life. The game offers teens guidance about responsible cell phone behaviors and how to use these devices to enhance their personal safety. Players become a live action character in an interactive movie and are presented with a series of difficult decisions in a slice-of-life context. The teens must make tough decisions and view the consequences of their actions in the video.

A teenage girl from Illinois survived a brutal attack by her peers that was captured on cell phone video by a male student who did nothing to intervene. Mercedes Michaels was beaten, burned and had most of her hair cut off during the attack.

An experiment in using technology to help stop the spread of pandemics is about to begin in Japan, and its results could have implications for U.S. schools as well.

The challenge for many college administrators today is how can they put cell phones to work for both students and the college. In Palo Alto, Calif., home of Stanford University, developers of an iPhone application called iStanford 2.0 hopes one day to see the iPhone replace the campus ID card. The entrepreneurial Stanford students have already produced a suite of iPhone applications that access the university's course catalog, campus map and other resources.The application suite was rolled out in October and has already garnered national attention, including winning the $10,000 grand prize for AT&T's "Big Mobile on Campus" contest for best smart phone application. One of the student members of the firm said he hopes to see the iPhone replace student identification cards in the future.

The questions here allow you to place yourself in one of the categories in the Pew Internet Project's Typology of Information and Communication Technology Users. To identify the typology group to which you belong, please answer the questions below. When you press the 'Calculate My Results' button, a new page will tell you in which group you fit, along with a description of the general characteristics of that group.

Now comes new details about the parental control system coming to the App Store. All iPhone applications will be rated in one of four age categories: 4+, 9+, 12+, or 17+. When Apple announced the coming 3.0 release of its iPhone software, it referred to parental controls for apps.

According to Canadian digital learning consultant Dean Shareski, Craik School in Saskatchewan, Canada, recently experimented with cell phones as learning tools and discovered improved student engagement, responsibility and innovation as well as problem solving skills. The K-12 school discovered students aren't dazzled by their phones, but simply use them to share ideas, pictures, sounds and videos.

Sage advice on teen texting etiquette, posted by Houston mom, Francisca Ortega.

K-12 projects that have integrated student cell phones

Results from this CosmoGirl survey of teens and young adults show that 21% of teen girls and 18% of teen boys have sent/ posted nude or semi-nude images of themselves. What is going on with teens, tech, and sex?

In an effort to better understand the intersection between sex and cyberspace with respect to attitudes and behavior, the National Campaign to Prevent teen and unplanned Pregnancy and CosmoGirl.com commissioned a survey of teens and young adults to explore electronic activity. This is the first public study of its kind to quantify the proportion of teens and young adults that are \nsending or posting sexually suggestive text and images.

Tammy Worcester's handouts and links from NECC09

Larry Magid and Anne Collier of ConnectSafely.org have put together HELPFUL TIPS TO PREVENT SEXTING for Educators, Parents and Students. They did a lot of research to pull these tips together, including talking with current prosecutors, a formal federal prosecutor and legal scholars and they include what-to-do advice for parents with kids involved. Getting teens the facts will help with the trend.

Currently, student non-compliance may result in confiscation of the device and other disciplinary action. But, says Superintendent Dave Jeck, that policy is about to change to keep pace with growing student non-compliance. "Cell phone usage issues were at one time exclusively a high school-middle school problem," says Jeck. "Now there are issues on all levels. We need ... a division-wide policy that makes it very clear that usage during the school day is not acceptable and violations will be dealt with sternly."Jeck is working on an addendum to the current policy -- even though legislators say the school district doesn't have to allow electronic devices on school property at all.

This latest report from the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute concludes that the risk of a vehicle crash can be up to 23 times higher when the driver is texting, compared to a driver who is paying full attention to the road. The report concludes that driving while texting should be banned, and that cell phone use should be banned for newly-licensed drivers.

Gina Healy didn't expect to hold an assembly with her middle schoolers about sexting. But after the school newspaper wrote about an alleged incident involving 8th graders sending nude photos over cell phones, Healy consulted with the Newton, PA, police department-and then talked to her students.

School officials in the Calallen, Corpus Christi, Flour Bluff, and Tuloso-Midway independent school districts say their existing policy prohibiting cell phone use during school hours goes a long way to addressing any potential sexting problems. West Oso Independent School District Superintendent Michael Sandroussi said his district has a similar cell phone policy, but he thinks sexting is a serious issue that should be addressed. "Besides confiscation of phones, further disciplinary measures should be considered."

School officials in the Calallen, Corpus Christi, Flour Bluff, and Tuloso-Midway independent school districts say their existing policy prohibiting cell phone use during school hours goes a long way to addressing any potential sexting problems. West Oso Independent School District Superintendent Michael Sandroussi said his district has a similar cell phone policy, but he thinks sexting is a serious issue that should be addressed. "Besides confiscation of phones, further disciplinary measures should be considered."

The laws governing "sexting" should be overhauled so naive teenagers sending raunchy images are not lumped with serious sex offenders, experts say. Under current legislation children who send sexually explicit images or video of themselves to others can face child pornography charges and even be placed on the Sex Offenders Register.

Painfully aware of this rampant trend, high school educators are very concerned about the impact sexting can have on teenage lives and are working urgently to address the problem by examining policies regarding cell phone use during school hours.

Text messages are forcing us to rethink the way we deal with the difficult issues that arise when teenagers get involved with sex; The Times addressed this touchy issue in its June 1 editorial, "Keeping an eye on 'sexting.' " Some in law enforcement have taken extreme measures against teens who send sexually explicit words and images using cellphones and Internet sites. Their solution? Treat these kids just like adults who traffic in pornographic pictures of children.

As the prevalence of sexting cases continue to come to light, many states are grappling to determine an appropriate punishment for this frightening new trend. With no federal law on the books, kids committing the same act in different states are finding themselves facing drastically different, sometimes life-altering, punishments.