Digiteen Diigo group that we use with our students on the digital citizenship project. The 9 aspects of digital citizenship correspond with the 9 aspects from Mike Ribble and Gerald Bailey's Digital Citizenship in schools.

A program from Neustar to Kentucky schools about Digital Citizenship. Lots of people are jumping on this "bandwagon." I think my biggest concern is that: #1 It needs to be "real" and not based on preachy scare-based tactics #2 Students should talk with those who share the program - if it is just videos and worksheets, that doesn't cut it.  #3 To talk about and learn social media, you should be doing it. (That is what we do on Digiteen.) a major new initiative to bring social media digital literacy education to students across the state of Kentucky through a program called "My Digital Life." Neustar will partner with EverFi, Inc., a leading education technology company, to provide this innovative, online student experience to all Kentucky schools interested in teaching and certifying their students in digital literacy skills and responsibility. Most importantly, Neustar's partnership is making the cutting-edge program available free of cost to the schools and state.

Ray Chambers is a UK teacher doing some fascinating things with Microsoft products like Kinect and Microsoft Tag. I love this lesson plan that links with literacy, creative writing, digital citizenship. You can do this lesson yourself to see how it works. (Another great lesson plan I found on the TES site. A very global site for sharing and finding resources.)

Some teachers recommended the book "When Marion Copied" for teaching kids about plaigarism in elementary.

If you can't use photos, avatars are a great replacement. Here are some suggestions for how to use avatars.

This is a must read post with eye popping, shock inducing graphics that may let you see the Internet as never before. Cyber loafing costing businesses millions? 24% of people MISS real life events in order to share them with others who aren't there? People dying from gaming addiction? It just asks questions, but if you talk about digital citizenship, these are graphics you must share and discuss. Take time to read this article, it is important.

As students work on projects, permissions for photos is important, this website lists 50 of the top places to get free photos.

The biggest privacy offenders (hat tip Lifehacker podcast) include Facebook, gmail, MSN Live, Skype, Twitter, Dropbox, Google Plus. This demonstrates whoch internet service providers share your personal data without an official court order. If you look at the infographic, you'll see that Facebook is more than twice the second offender, gmail. Many concerned about privacy are moving to services like PATH for just that reason.

Facebook has launched its response to Snapchat, with Facebook Poke, the self destructing message deliverer? Why would you want a message to self destruct or delete itself if a person tried to do a screengrab on their phone? Well, so you can send goofy pics to your friends with no trace left behind! Never fear, however, teenagers are here. They've been talking to me about how they get around this - if you're snap chatting a friend and you have a friend with you - get the friend up close to be ready to take a picture with their camera phone and then post the pic on Facebook that was delivered with Snapchat. They think it is hilarious but admit that this app is also being used as a new way to "flash" others. How long will it take for everyone to learn that you can't ever really destroy anything any more? If it is done it is permanent - the easiest way to keep private things private is to never do them in the first place. This article goes into more about Facebook poke if you really get into that sort of thing or want to keep up with what the kids are doing.

With so many sharing photos about the storm, here's an excellent article on how to make sure photos are real. This would be a great exercise to do with your students who are in school to talk about the veracity of pictures.

The issue of fake friends and sham accounts is becoming a problem on FAcebook. This is an extensive article about the topic that can be referenced in our project. "Though the access varies depending on each individual's privacy settings, once a spammer has become "friends" with other users, he can then tag them in photos, post messages to their walls, chat with them, send status updates to their news feeds and connect with their friends. In this fashion, the fake friends insinuate themselves into the social networks of all of the people they reach, with each new friend reinforcing the appearance that the relationships are real and making it easier to add even more friends."

"Addictive internet use is defined as an impulse-control disorder that does not involve an intoxicant" -This is a research study from 1998.

This Justin Beiber fan site has been penalized more than $100,000 for collecting emails of minors under 13 without parental permission. COPPA compliance is more important than ever. I find it ironic that kids under 13 aren't even supposed to be able to have emails in the first place on many websites. "The details of the registration process varied depending on the site, so you'll want to read the complaint for the specifics. But the 25-words-or-less summary is that Artist Arena allegedly collected kids' names, addresses, email addresses, birthdates, gender and other info without properly notifying parents and getting their consent. According to the complaint, the company violated COPPA by knowingly registering over 25,000 kids under 13 and collected and maintained personal information from almost 75,000 other kids under 13 who started the sign-up process, but didn't finish it."

This is important and why kids under 13 cannot get on most social media websites.

This is a copy of our school website, here you can see several other sources of information. We have a rotating picasa web album. A school calendar, and a news feed from our blog. I'm working on the alignment as I had an upload last week with a glitch, but it does show how you can have information from other places. We also have a youtube channel, facebook page, and Twitter account.

Scareware. Yes, it is a term. Scaring people into thinking they have a virus. Knowledge is power and it will also save you money. Being educated about computers pays over your life. It is time for all of us to be educated and savvy. I know someone taken by this scam. "English-speaking consumers in the United States, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and the U.K. were targeted in the global scam, regulators said. Most of the scammers were based in India, but some also came from the U.S. and U.K. The scam involved cold callers who claimed to work for major technology companies, such as Microsoft or Google, and who told consumers they had viruses on their PCs, according to regulators. The callers would attempt to dupe users into giving them remote access to their computers, locking the user out while attempting to "fix" the malware that the scammer claimed was on the machine."

An excellent screencast from Flickr about location based safety on Flickr.

The Facebook family safety center has information on safety. I still feel it is very convoluted and very confusing but it does have some information for educators and parents on the site.

I always tell my students when they travel with me never to joke in airports about anything. I have to admit that the new NSA center with the best decryption capabilities in the world and a seemingly blank check will have me add this article to our reading list as we talk about privacy. We thought the Internet was about freedom but have put so much of our private lives out there we may have just been giving it away. Don't freak out, just be aware. This particular issue is a black box so the article may be filled with conjecture. I thought it was worth the read,

It is legal for a prospective employer during a job interview to ask you to log into your facebook page and click through your friends only posts, photos, and messages. This is a very important topic for digital citizens to understand.

You'll want to read this lawsuit as it lies on the cusp of what we will experience in schools in the future. In this case, a 12 year old girl (on Facebook, despite the fact she is technically too young to be) is suing a school district (via the ACLU) for punishment because of her use of Facebook. I think the school went too far when it required her to hand over her Facebook and email login to the school, but we'll see what the courts decide. The ACLU says this is a violation of free speech. Stay tuned and realize that students have a right to hate you, say unkind things about you, etc. There is a fine line in what is allowed and what isn't. Just because we CAN deal with issues relating to bullying of other children - that doesn't mean we can wear our own chips on our shoulders and require that kids pretend to like us. It is hurtful when children say unkind things and many don't realize everyone is watching. If students are not understanding the consequences of their actions, then I partially blame any school that doesn't step up and teach digital citizenship.