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As any parent knows, tweens are crazy about cellphones. Those hoping to delay such a purchase--despite cries of "But everyone else has one!"--take note: 46% of U.S. tweens (ages 8 to 12) use cellphones, but only 26% own them, according to data released Wednesday by Nielsen Mobile. These "mobile borrowers" use their parents' phones when they go out with friends or on short trips, says Sally DePiro, a Nielsen product manager who worked on the report. The borrowing is more than an occasional habit: About 50% take their parents' phones more than three times a week. The key age for these early adopters is 10. While kids start using borrowed cellphones, on average, at around age eight-and-a-half, American tweens generally acquire their own phones between the ages of 10 and 11, reports Nielsen.

A course being offered at Stanford University that teaches parents "how to think" about Facebook. The web site includes five steps for parents and a newsletter.

Bumped in to this today -- would you belive in coincidences -- Parents as Partners at joined by Steve Hargadon tonight 14 April 9pm PDT (too late for GMT me) -- participate at chatroom http://edtechtalk.com/live -- to discuss web2.0 pedagogies in schools and best practices for educating parents -- I so wish I could stay up but will have to leave that for others (aka feedback request please) -- although thinking about it I might manage to get up early the following day (ouch).

IKeepSafe Video addresses parents on the importance of an online reputation and the realities of a negative digital reputation. The same two vignettes are used in this video as the one done specifically for students. These are true stories. Advice to parents is offered.

Parenting in the 21st century presents a new set of challenges that require new solutions. Like their parents before them, today's parents have to help their kids navigate school, friends, crushes, extracurricular activities and sexuality. But they also face a bewildering new world, driven by technology and media. In this excerpt from "What Every 21st-Century Parent Needs to Know," Debra W. Haffner addresses what parents can do to help their kids navigate the Internet.

These materials are intended to be used with parents. After showing the Common Sense Video on cyberbullying tips, this discussion guide can be used with parents. There is also a Cyberbullying Tip Sheet that parents can refer to in the discussion. Provide the Family Media Agreement for parents to \ntake home and discuss with their family.

Millions of students head to the nearest computer to conduct school research online. With the Internet's help, they can create everything from detailed projects on rainforests to slide presentations about how a hurricane forms without setting foot in a library."There's a wealth of information on the Internet, and it's a great tool," says Ross Ellis, founder and CEO of Love our Children USA, a child abuse prevention organization that is active in Internet safety. "You can't keep kids off the Internet." Yet the Internet is not the place for an all-access pass. Kids of all ages need parental supervision. A few common-sense tips can help keep your child safe online.

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.

Today's cellular phones (cell phones) are more than just phones, they are hightech appliances that also serve as a mini-computers. Cell phones are electronic gadgets that allow users to surf the web, conduct text chats with others, take photos, record video, download and listen to music, play games, update blogs, send instant text messages to others, keep a calendar and to-do list, and more, much more. But cell phones also carry risks and cause distractions.

Welcome to Web Safety For Kids, a wiki setup to support presentations for parents about Internet safety. It contains links to a range of resources that parents may find helpful in a dealing with their children's use of the Internet at home.

Nancy Willard and Anne Collier offer eight ways to deal with cyberbullies in this article.
1. Identify and block.
2. Set boundaries.
3. File a complaint.
4. Contact the school
5. Send the parents a certfied "cease and desist" letter.
6. Call an attorney.
7. Contact the local police.
8. Talk with your kids about what's acceptable.

Designed for parents, this article offers benefits and risks of Internet usage, parental action strategies to keep students safe while online, links to Internet safety organization resources and other Internet safety related articles.

The company will provide content blockers that allow parents to prevent their children from accessing certain content, application filters to keep children from using software and will empower parents with time limiting tools to control time spent on various Internet activities.

This form is powered by Wufoo Online forms and is a 'guide' to getting parent permission at the teacher level to allow students to participate in read/write activities. It is not a 'policy'. You will need to produce a printed version to ensure that you have a signature. Ensure that you provide adequate opportunity for parents to contact you with questions or express an interest in parental education about the read/write web.

According to new research, more than half of parents cite inappropriate people such as strangers or child predators and content such as adult imagery or depicted violence as the biggest online threats they perceive to their children. But it found that only about a third of them know that there are parental control tools available that can help insulate kids from these perceived threats.

Note that this "research" was done by a company that sells security products so the questions about "biggest online threats" may have been slightly skewed.

Net Savvy Parenting in the New Year: Five Things You Need to Know. Sound advice from Anne Collier of NetFamily News

Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, has long studied "the Net Generation," the first to have grown up with the Internet, not to mention cellphones. In Me, MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation (Palgrave Macmillan), he helps parents understand social networks. His advice: Talk to your kids, learn the technology and don't panic. USA TODAY's Janet Kornblum spoke with the author. The complete interview can be found here.

Cox Communications commissioned Harris Interactive to conduct a survey among U.S. teens ages 13-18. Key objectives of this study were to: *Examine teen's online and cell phone behavior, specifically regarding: * Sending sexually suggestive text messages ore emails * Bullying others online or by text message *Understand the relationship between teens and their parents regarding parental controls for the Internet *Uncover how and why teens go online on their cell phone
Download the complete 60-page report.

In the first federal appeals court opinion dealing with "sexting" - the transmission of sexually explicit photographs by cellphone - a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled Wednesday that parents could block the prosecution of their children on child pornography charges for appearing in photographs found on some classmates' cellphones.

It would be wonderful if parents could simply purchase a set of "controls" that would instruct children in online safety and screen out dangers. While of course no piece of software can do all of this, parental controls combined with online safety education and some common sense rules for Internet use are a parent's best strategy for keeping children safe online.