In a prior post, there was an article about "Internet Safety in the Emerging Collaboration Economy". The intent was to make us think more seriously about the social environment of our “digital natives” -- it is here to stay, and we need to provide “proper direction” for its use. Just as we discuss “stranger danger” topics with our children, we should also teach them skills to help them identify their “internal alarm”, warning them to retreat from threats to their safety on the Internet. 
 
A group of state's attorneys general have formed a Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking. The intent is for the group to find ways for Social Networking sites to become more responsible in protecting children from Internet dangers. According to Enterprise Security Today (enterprise-security-today.com), in mid January, social network giant MySpace had reached an agreement with the Group on creating a new set of guidelines for protecting the "young members in its community". They have identified four categories of principles to guide the protection of children on social networking sites: 
1) site design and functionality;  
2) education and tools for parents, educators and children;  
3) law enforcement cooperation;  
4) an online safety task force. 
Not the final answer but a good beginning we all could learn from. The group is intent on moving these principals throughout other social networking providers such as Facebook.  
 
To reiterate, as uncomfortable as we digital immigrants are, we need to provide proper direction for our children. Our classroom teachers are weaving these skills into their classroom activities, utilizing collaboration along with the delivery of the curriculum content. Lincoln Middle School classrooms are blogging about novels and science experiments. Fifth grade classrooms are creating wikis from their research in topics of the Human Body, Geography, and Space. Of course, the students enjoy these types of activities, but we are learning along with them -- which is most interesting and fun for us, as we emigrate from our world to theirs.  

Posted by: bfurst

Carnegie Mellon University has composed a short game to help kids and parents identify web sites that can trick you into believing they are authentic.  
For instance, is www.citizensbankus.com really a banking web site? If you are unsure, point your browser to http://cups.cs.cmu.edu/antiphishing_phil/ and play the game. 

Posted by: bfurst

Internet Safety in the Emerging Collaboration Economy

As adults, when we think about safety and security, we recall our parents telling us to stay out of certain neighborhoods, keep a close eye on personal possessions,  
and of course, “don’t talk to strangers." As the virtual world  
grows, we see more and more that safety and security lessons apply the same  
way. When walking down the street, we need to be aware of our surroundings --  
so too in the virtual world.

However, parents know that if they simply shelter their children from the world,  
they will not afford them the experiences to be able to make the right decisions  
in this ever-changing society. Over the pass 10 years we have moved from an information economy to a knowledge economy, and now to a collaboration economy. From a book by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams called Wikinomics:  
How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything: “Today, teams numbering  
in the thousands or even millions are creating encyclopedias, jetliners, operating  
systems, mutual funds, and many other items... Smart firms can harness collective  
capability and genius to spur innovation, growth, and success.” The  
book has success stories telling how firms like IBM, Proctor&Gamble, and  
Boeing have leveraged these technologies for large productivity gains and cost savings in product  
development, sales, and marketing.

MySpace, Facebook and other collaboration sites such as these, have been given bad press. However, the collaboration technologies they utilize -- with proper direction -- can cultivate the skills our children will require in this collaboration economy. The piece missing, of course is “the proper direction." We can make a case that it is very difficult to stop these digital natives from utilizing these tools, so logically, our task (as parents and educators) then, is to join in, and engage in parent-child conversations -- to better understand this virtual world and provide direction to the net generation for proper utilization of these social networking tools.

The district complies with the Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA)  
by providing appropriate filtering and supervision of students on the Internet.  
We encourage parents not only to seek resources, but also engage in Internet safety conversations with their children to provide the same, if not better protection in their homes.

The District is collecting resources for parents to direct their children -- please see http://dist57.org/i-safe . 

 
Comments to this weblog entry are welcomed.

Posted by: bfurst