Group items tagged

""Digital citizenship" is an umbrella term that covers a whole host of important issues. Broadly, it's the guidelines for responsible, appropriate behavior when one is using technology. But specifically, it can cover anything from "netiquette" to cyberbullying; technology access and the digital divide; online safety and privacy; copyright, plagiarism, and digital law, and more. In fact, some programs that teach digital citizenship have outlined no less than nine elements that intersect to inform a well-equipped digital citizen. It's an overwhelming array of skills to be taught and topics to explore."

VideoAmy explores the topic of digital citizenship with this playlist of videos on the importance of online safety, manners, privacy, and responsibility.

"Schoolchildren are at risk of having their online activity tracked and monitored for targeted advertising by internet firms through free cloud based education services. A survey has found that many parents do not know about data mining - the process of tracking email and web browsing habits in order to target advertising - but once they do they have grave concerns for their kids' online privacy, and believe schools need to do more to protect it. The survey commissioned by American IT industry group SafeGov asked 1000 Australian parents about their knowledge of data mining."

"Google openly collects user data from its online services but not via apps for education, but there is concern that the online activity of teenagers is being analysed for targeted advertising."

"This leads to an intriguing thought: that the young cyber-activists in Cairo are showing the rest of the world what it means to be a digital citizen. We, in the online safety community, have been promoting the idea and ideals of 21st century citizenship for a number of years. Simply put, we ask: How can we move the rights and responsibilities we take for granted in the offline world and move them into the online space? How can we encourage the equivalent of rushing to the scene of an accident or reporting a crime or getting involved in your local community when it comes to the online communities we increasingly inhabit? How can we promote new social norms of behavior in a seemingly rule-free, anything goes environment that much of the web seems to exhibit?"

"That training isn't just for the kids interacting on the site. Everloop also educates parents about how kids make use of social media channels. Parents can help shape the online experience for their kids, but they aren't allowed to participate in the tweens' space. Everloop is a Toolkit for Parents There is a growing trend toward use of monitoring for digital parenting. Location services can be buried deep in the firmware of smartphones and other mobile devices to allow parents to keep tabs on their kids. CheckPoint, an internet security firm, offers software to alert parents to patterns of destructive online behavior on Facebook without granting direct access to the content. Facebook itself has taken steps, including an upgrade to their Family Safety Center, to improve education and member reporting of destructive content. Everloop focuses on a user group younger than these technologies address."

A guide to staying safe and secure online from Google Explore quick tips and how-to's that explain what you can do to stay safe and secure on the web. Get advice from parents at Google and family safety experts on how to help your family safely surf the web. Learn how Google helps protect you.

"Internet filters in schools often compromise a teacher's ability to teach, yet at the same time are easy for tech-savvy students to get around, a parliamentary committee on cyberbullying has heard. The Federal Parliament undertook a cyber-safety committee late last week to investigate community concerns about protecting children from bullying online and the measures that could be used to prevent it, such as Internet filtering."

"Robyn Treyvaud is the founder and director of CyberSafeWorld, a website that addresses the whole spectrum of online safety issues, including cyberbullying, risks, security, ethics and addiction.Her trail-blazing efforts have provided an essential resource for schools and parents to protect and educate the world's first generation of kids to 'grow up digital' in an environment where computers, the Internet, video games and mobile phones are ubiquitous. In addition to her work as director of CyberSafeWorld, Robyn is a senior ICT consultant at Australia's Center for Strategic Education."

"Children are inherently social creatures. Take one look at a playground and you'll see young kids interacting with one another, practicing their social skills, and learning the lay of the land. So, it's only natural that children would want to follow the popular trend of joining an online social network…right? After all, their friends are doing it. In this article, we will explore social networking websites and how children below the required age to join are able to open accounts. We will also discuss the social networking dangers and positive effects of social networks on young children and offer helpful tips for parents who wish to guide their kids towards a safe direction."

I came across this through a comment posting on another site. Catherine Cronin runs parent awareness workshops on interent safety and digital citizenship. This is page of links from her wiki. The rest of the site is worth exploring as well.

"Protecting kids online is no easy job, especially since the best way to keep them safe is to lessen the protectionist urge and empower them to explore at will."

"Data Dealer is an online game about collecting and selling personal data - full of irony and gleeful sarcasm. It´s a browser/serious/edu/impact game about digital culture and surveillance and aims to raise awareness about online privacy in a new and fun way. The English version was released in May 2013. Let's call it a bastard offspring of certain shiny 2010 Facebook Games and the 1990 TV simulation game Mad TV, reborn with the souls of South Park and Bruce Schneier. And it´s also available on Facebook! Oh, the irony. In today´s digital age virtually everything we do is recorded, monitored or tracked in some way: Data Dealer is a unique interactive exploration of this personal data ecosystem."

One media review of the new Grade 6 cybersafety online course found here: https://www.digitallicence.com.au/home

The Australian Communications and Media Authority has launched a guide to being positive about digital engagement'' rather than being a wary Internet user. The Guide facilitates confident online engagement by citizens through identifying three principles which reflect the required values, skills and knowledge: Engage positively: exercise your rights and responsibilities as a digital citizen Know your online world: learn new skills and digital technologies Choose consciously: take charge of how you interact online.

"New research from the ACMA is casting a clear light on what Aussie teens are involved in, online. It shows that kids from 14 - 17 years are, unsurprisingly, active players in Australia's digital economy, who are online more often than ever before, use the internet and mobiles for everything from entertainment to shopping, research, banking and sharing with friends."

"We recently helped a 17-year-old get a topless photo and fake profile removed from a social networking site. But even though content was deleted, the picture and fake profile lived on as "cached" or archived content in the Google Search index. So the content removal process didn't end with the social networking site. The next step was to submit a request to remove the cached content from Google, called a "content removal request." It's important to note that the picture and fake profile would have naturally dropped out of Google the next time its Web crawler indexed the updated page. But if you want to expedite the removal process, the way the user above did, here's how:"

An interactive guide worth taking a look at.

Definetheline.ca: Clarifying the Blurred Lines between Cyber-bullying and Socially Responsible Digital Citizenship. Welcome to Definetheline.ca. The objective of our research team at McGill University is to share our expertise with policy-makers, teachers, parents, educators and youth (11 - 17) in user-friendly ways that help all stakeholders engage, learn from, and share resources on our website. We also have a fun section for children (ages 5 - 11) that will promote responsible, thoughtful and considerate digital citizens from an early age. Defining Digital Citizenship and Socially Responsible Online Communication: Social media and a range of digital technologies provide enormous opportunities for peaceful and supportive global interaction, international learning collaboration and fruitful educational partnerships. Every digital user has the potential to reach communities in all corners of the world through transformational online leadership and responsible digital citizenship by embracing the fundamental principles that underlie constitutional rights to free expression, privacy, safety, fair and equality.

From ACMA Cybersmart this very catchy video has stats on what students are doing online as well as lots of targetted advice on what to do to prevent problems and what to do when problems arise. It also contains visual links to the support docs that Cybersmart can provided.