Dena Budrecki's List: Online Safety

• I think parents and teachers are roadblocks...fear and ignorance are the worst of the culprits. I think we need to teach from the top and then go down, otherwise we will not have the support we need from the top. How many things, for instance, are blocked by your district's servers? There is where to start the education...
• Were parents, teachers, administrators, so resistive to change when the slide rule, calculator, overhead were introduced in school? Were they afraid that when students learned to use a calculator they wouldn't know math any more? Maybe. Social Media and Web 2.0 Tools are just that, tools. They are the devices teachers use to teach, and students use to learn. I (and many others) see them no different from the chisel and slate, ink and hide or pencil and paper. These are just the new tools. And new tools take time getting used to.
• Parents naturally fear what they don't understand. So, help them understand. Give them same access you would give a student. Bring them in, and teach them just as you would your students. If you are using Edmodo, let them in and see the discussion. If you are working in Animoto, bring them in and have them make one also. If you can't do it during your class, make the time to do it during a special open house night or meeting at your school. Even if there isn't enough time to create, at least show. More importantly, talk about the whys and the benefits.

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• Universal digital media safety, citizenship, and literacy competencies.

  •Targeted youth risk online prevention and intervention.
• All young people must gain competencies in the safe and responsible use of digital media technologies and resources. This includes understanding risks and effective protective strategies, understanding the standards for responsible behavior, and taking responsibility for the well-being of others.

• These materials support the authoritarian delivery of inaccurate, fear-based messages and simplistic rules against normative online behavior. Fear-based risk prevention approaches have never been demonstrated to be effective in preventing risk behavior. This approach may cause young people not to report negative situations because they fear adults will overreact, blame them, and restrict their online actions.
• Develop a plan to use multiple instructional opportunities including direct instruction in appropriate classes, infusion throughout Web 2.0 instruction, teachable moments such as actual incidents and news reports, and informal tips such as signage and computer screens.
• The young people who are at greater risk online are generally those who are at greater risk offline .
• At the school level, addressing the concerns that impact the school community will require a multidisciplinary team, including safe school and educational technology personnel. Professional development for this team will be necessary.
• We cannot effectively seek to prevent young people from engaging in risky behavior if we are not paying close attention to the research and other insights into this behavior. But there is also a time lag between the emergence of a new concern and research that explores that concern, so we have to look closely at what is happening. We can’t effectively manage student internet use if we hold to the misperception that filtering is effective.

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