Pocket Cindy's educational K-12 blog.
Just got back from a cybersafety presentation at a local junior high school for an AVID 9 class. PocketJeanz and I were invited by the teacher because she wanted the topics of cyberbullying, predators, and being safe on MySpace fresh on their minds when they begin their summer break next week.
If I'm remembering correctly, this is only the second time we've done the presentation for a group of students, having instead present multiple times to parent groups, school site council, school boards, teacher staff meetings, and my own classes at our COE.
We started off having the kids play Lingo Bingo (well, the laptop decided to update and restart itself when the kids were walking into the classroom). Most of them new the usual L8r, ttyl, piracy, and IM, two new about phishing, and (thankfully) none of them knew POS, A/S/L, or TAW. :)
Jumping into the main topics of the presentation, we asked them about the things that they do on the Net (YouTube, MSN, MySpace) and what their parents do (work!). We talked about MySpace, creating their profiles, and just how much of their personal information actually "needs" to be on their page, the different types of bullying that can on with all the different communication tools, and how predators groom their victims.
One way I like to address teens with these topics is, well, try not to preach to them, but come at it from a different viewpoint. How should their parents keep safe? How can we keep younger kids safe? It is less direct, but still let's them ask questions. One girl was interested in keeping safe from identity theft ("what do I do if someone steals my SS#?"). I also use my own daughter's troubles with various bullies over the years as examples.
And the class really liked the "setting up a MySpace page at the Learning Annex!" :) I had a link to the NBC Saturday Night Live site for it, but I can't quite find it right now. I'm sure some of you more industrious few can find it. ;)
Flag as inappropriateSaturday, June 7th, 2008 @ 5:34 PM
I am a new teacher who is interested in blending my curriculum with the online resources and instruction. I am debating this summer whether to have my own website or to use myspace or facebook for students & parents. My question about this is whether as a teacher I should use myspace or not for putting up curriculum and activities. Is it advisable to use myspace for my classes or would a website be better? I feel that almost all my students are on myspace so why don't I use it as way to reach them for blogging, forums, projects etc...
Thanks
Flag as inappropriateMonday, June 9th, 2008 @ 8:31 AM
I think this could definitely be a red flag for parents and administration. Some would be ok with it, but I think some/many parents to not allow their students to browse myspace. Due to the low security features, there are risks. You might want to look at gaggle.net. This is a safe social network made for students and schools. Inappropriate language is filtered, students can have email addresses, blogs, message boards, chats, etc and you can regulate/administer everything. I used this site for 2 years with my students and they were able to collaborate through the system in a safe manner. Even the parents were excited about the all the safety features.
Flag as inappropriateTuesday, June 10th, 2008 @ 2:06 PM
Hi,
I work for CTAP 4 and you link to our activity. We are glad to see it being used. Can I get a little more info about which other, if any, materials linked on our site you've found helpful?
Thanks,
Adrienne DeWolfe
adewolfe@acoe.org
CTAP Region IV
Flag as inappropriateTuesday, June 10th, 2008 @ 2:09 PM
As for Kevin's question above. Try ning.com
You can set up your own protected social network and select who may join. It's a great tool. Also, edzone here is soon to have safe social networking on their site.
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