3DWiredSafety

Who's Job Is It?

2011-06-14T08:23:00.003-04:00

Parry received a letter after being quoted in an article in Parade magazine. She Cc.ed me and I had to add my own response. Here's the letter and my response.

Dear Parry,

As a school district technology coordinator, I was disappointed in the misguided advice you present related to the Facebook bullying scenario. While we go to great lengths to educate our students on cyber-bullying, what happens on Facebook does not fall under the coverage of school policies. Obviously, if a page is brought to a teacher or administrator's attention, it will be dealt with appropriately, meaning the parents will be contacted. But expecting schools to police what all of their students do outside of the buildings on their own devices is not reasonable or legal. Would you ask a teacher to intervene in a fight between two neighborhood children that happens at 7:00 at night? Of course not. Unless the bullying happens at school, on school computers or causes a disruption in the educational process, the parents, or police, should be handling this. Your advice is unfortunate because it is another example of basic parental responsibilities being shifted to the school's (already full) list of duties.

Sincerely,
John Doe (Name changed by me)

------------------------------------

Dear John,

I’ve been an educator for 35 years. I first came across cyberbullying in 1981. No, I’m not crazy. I know the Internet wasn’t even around then, but dial up computer bulletin board systems were, and our school had the state’s first school sponsored BBS. I’ve learned quite a bit since then. One of the things I learned is that kids who are being bullied online are usually also being bullied in school. I’ve also learned that teachers and administrators can’t police students anywhere near as effectively as students can.

I don’t think Parry expects schools to police Facebook, but the fact of the matter is that if an incident on Facebook is brought to the attention of the school, it is probably for good reason. I would be willing to bet my pay check that the bullying that is taking place there, is just an off shoot of bullying that takes place in school.

You ask if we would expect a teacher to intervene between two neighborhood kids who have a fight outside of school at 7:00 at night. Well, the obvious answer is, of course not, but there is also a not so obvious answer. I would expect the teacher to intervene if they had knowledge during the school day that the fight would take place. How about, if the fight at 7:00 were to continue or escalate during school time the next day?

There is an alarming practice that is starting to show up more and more in schools. It is gang related instigation of fights. Gangs will use cyberbullying tactics to instigate fights between students. These incident are usually initiated online and designed to create a fight that takes place in school where there is an audience.

The simple fact is that there is almost ALWAYS an in-school component to cyberbullying. While no one expects schools to police Facebook (heck, Facebook has a hard enough time doing that), it isn’t unreasonable to expect schools to look into incidents that are reported to them, because they probably do have an in school component. Whether or not they meet the legal test for action, is something that has to be considered carefully before any punitive action is taken. However, even if substantial disruption is likely, punitive action isn’t necessarily the best course of action. Each case has to be judged on its own merits.

The landscape is changing rapidly and the distinction between in-school and out-of-school is being blurred. Policing and punishing is never an acceptable substitute for education and empowering students to do the right thing.

The school district in which I taught was called Southern Regional. In 1998, three students created a website called SouthernRegionalSucks.com . It was done outside of school, with their own computers. It quickly because popular. There was actually some decent parody, but some of the forums were ugly and hateful. It was obvious that we could make a case for substantial disruption and take action, but that wasn’t my recommendation. I simply asked that they administration allow me to see what I could do.

What I did was engage the students in dialog right on their own site. I offered to find them a teacher sponsor to help them develop quality parody. I gave constructive criticism on the sites layout and design. I pointed out typos and spelling errors. I was teaching Internet Basics and my approach was to develop civic responsibility and empower students to make a difference in their world. As part of the class, we visited the site and discussed it. Some of my students added to the parodies and others stuck up for those who were being bullied. By not reacting the way the students expected and by making their attempt at disruption, a part of the mainstream, interest in the site died within two weeks and the site disappeared entirely not much later.

We developed a school community that was based on dialog, education, and youth empowerment. The positives that came out of that were nothing short of amazing. Of course there were cases where punishment was necessary. One student was arrested for credit card fraud and we even had a cyberbullying incident that involved a visit from the Secret Service, but we found those incidents few and far between. For the most part, we empowered students to make a difference and taught them the power of positive online social action.

Oh, incidentally, the visit from the Secret Service was prompted by action a student took online from his own computer at night and didn’t even involve another student in our school. He was attempting to use cyberbullying by proxy to bully a student in another school.

If we wait until there is substantial disruption to act, we are forever in reactionary mode. We need to be proactive. We have to educate, model good online citizenship, promote positive online social activities, and empower students to take responsibility for making their online and off-line world a better place.

Best Regards,
Art

Some People Just Don't Get It!

2011-06-09T19:43:00.004-04:00

I recently read a comment to the effect that WiredSafety was nothing more than Parry Aftab and an annual summit in Washington, D.C. It wasn't the first time I heard it and won't be the last, but every time I hear it, I can't help but chuckle. Aside from being untrue, it just goes to illustrate just how little some people understand about the power of online collaboration.

To those who say it and don't really believe it, I simply say, "Shame on you."

To those who say it and actually believe it, I simply say, "Let me teach you!"

In 1995, I had the extreme good fortune of being a mentor in a 16 week summer project called the Online Internet Institute. It was the vision of Bonnie Bracey and Ferdi Serium. With some seed money from the NSF, the OII set out to come up with a way to scale up Internet professional development of educators.

After the 1995 National Education Computing convention, Bonnie and Ferdi gather a group of roughly 20 education luminaries to plan the project. They in turn gathered additional educators from around the world participated. We used an online database to form working teams based around the common needs and interests .

Our school district had just gotten Internet. I was charged with writing the curriculum and doing much of the professional development. I decided to gather a team to build a website that would be a Internet tutorial and the center of our professional development and curriculum for students. When it was over, not only would team members have access to the project, it would be made available to educators all over the world at no charge.

Had it not been for the OII and Internet, I would have been developing everything myself. As it turned out Susan Meyer, then of Princeton Regional HS, was in much the same boat as I. She became my partner in crime. We were joined by five other amazing educators from around the country. We also had commentary and critiques from leaders of other groups, such as Al Rogers, Andy Carvin, Margaret Honey, Jason Ravitz, Ferdi Serim, Bonnie Bracey, Hilarie Davis, Yvonne Andres, Kay Abernathy, Celia Einhorn, Betsy Frederick and others. If you don't know those names, just head on over to Google and check them out.

It was the most amazing 16 weeks I have ever spent. By the time school rolled around in September, our team had completed the web site and curriculum that would have been impossible for any individual to complete in such a short time.

It was truly greater than the sum of it's parts. We made the site downloadable and offered it to educators around the world. It was downloaded hundreds of times and over the next three years it was kept updated and distributed on about 2.5 million CDs. An archive of the site still exists at http://oii.org/cyberu/ .

So why am I telling you this and what does it have to do with WiredSafety? Well it's simple. Through online collaboration, we were able to assemble and tap into a quantity and quality of FREE talent that would have been impossible to assemble face to face, AT ANY PRICE, for 16 days, let alone 16 weeks.

That, my friends, is what online collaboration is all about, and that is what WiredSafety is all about! I've been a volunteer with WiredSafety since 1996. During that time, I've had the pleasure and the honor of working with some of the most dedicated, selfless, caring people that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. We have built content and provided support, training, and assistance to tens of thousands of people at a cost that is equal to a drop in the bucket compared to other similar organizations who have done far less.

Some worked together on curriculum. Some built online learning. Some monitored chat rooms. Some provided one-to-one assistance. Others worked with law enforcement. Some present to schools and community groups.

We do is all from home. We work online. While I'm sleeping, Tim in the UK or Mary in Abu Dhabi are working. (Yes, they are real people!) We have people working 24-7-365, not for money, not for advancement, not for recognition, but for a cause we all believe in.

I won't kid you. It isn't always organized, it isn't always fun, and it isn't always easy, but it is always worth it.

I have worked with hundreds of the volunteers and probably thousand of teens. Most I have never met face-to-face. So when I hear folks saying that WiredSafety is little more than Parry Aftab and a once a year summit in D.C., I chuckle, because they just don't get it.

I started out with 16 weeks of OII as a model of excellence that testifies to the power of online collaboration and in a few month, I will have been with WiredSafety for 16 years of online collaboration that is equal testimony to what passionate dedicated people can do with a budget that wouldn't sustain a face to face operation for 16 days.

Parry is our symbol. Her vision, her dedication, and her energy inspire us and her once a year summit in D.C. is a peek at the work we are doing behind the scenes. See what these kids do and knowing that we've made a difference is all the reward or recognition we need. Most of us like it fine that way!

That my friends, is the power of online collaboration, and these are some shots I took two days ago at our once a year WiredKids Summit at the Russell Senate building.

Bullying and Rethinking the Human Narrative

2011-02-02T14:37:00.002-05:00

Sir Ken Rogers is one of the world's leading proponents for changing the way schools educate. I've seen dozens of his videos and never cease to be inspired and motivated to continue the work I've undertaken for the past 40 years, namely to change schools. Today, thanks to him, new research on empathy and two animations from the Royal Society of the Arts, I came away with a significantly different view of a subject bullying, something that I have been struggling with for years.

I've often put a lot of blame on schools for the frequency of bullying, but that blame has been because I felt that schools lacked a systemic approach to the problem. Today, after viewing these two animations, I believe it is not simply because we lack a systemic approach to dealing with bullying. I believe that our entire system of education is largely to blame and if we were to change it based on Sir Ken's model, there would be a significant drop in bullying without doing anything different to directly address the issue.

The first animation I watched, thanks to zefrank.com. dealt with new brain research on things called mirror neurons and their function. Like some of the great leaps in science, the cells and their functions were discovered accidentally. Watch it yourself and think about the kind of light this research throws on bullying.

After you watch that, watch the animation of Sir Ken making his case for school change. Keeping the previous animation in your mind as you watch, ask yourself how the first animation can inform us on how to make the changes Sir Ken outline. Envison the end product of that process and ask, "How we get there from here?"

Royal Society for the Arts Animation - Empathetic Civilisation

Sir Ken Rogers - Changing Education Paradigms

Empowering Youth to Make a Difference

2010-12-10T13:07:00.007-05:00

Since 1995, WiredSafety has been empowering youth to make a difference. The Teenangels program trains teens over a two year period to become experts in cybersafety. They do original research and make presentations to schools, community, media, and industry to educate and inform. Last night at Dean College in Franklin, MA, the program took it’s next logical step with the help of WiredSafety Teenangel Mentors, Lisa Keohane, Sharon Jackson, and Linda Rondeau.

In early days of Teenangels, the teens received face to face training from Parry Aftab, local law enforcement, the FBI and industry experts, but that model wasn’t scalable and a few years ago we added Moodle as a way of providing lessons and resources to the growing chapters.

Teens learned about Cyberbullying, Social Networking, Sexual Predators, Netiquette, Privacy and Security, Cyberlaw, and how to present to others. With input from mentors and teens the program improved and grew and in 2009, Lisa Keohane, a parent and technology instructor from Dean College, after getting support from principals, administrators and the Franklin Community Health Council came to Parry with the idea of a community-wide chapter of Teenangels that spanned all of the schools in the district.

The chapter grew and a significant number of other students expressed a desire to become part of the program, but the two year commitment to training and research was not something that all the students could do. In order to accommodate these students, a new Moodle was created with condensed training and the first chapter of WiredTeens was formed.

Last night the 17 Teenangels collaborated with 65 WiredTeens to conduct a Town Meeting on the topic of Cyberbullying. The two hour program was written and conducted almost entirely by the teens.

Teenangel Booke, began the program with the welcome, some background on the Teenangels and an overview of resources on the tables, which included instructions on how to log into the college network and access resource they has placed on the taskforce web site. Many of the documents were at the Franklin Cyberbullying Taskforce site.

Next Kate introduced MA Legislature Majority Leader Representative, James Vallee, who has been a long time child advocate and supporter of Massachusetts Cyberbullying legislagtion, and Parry Aftab, founder of WiredSafety.

From there, it was time for the teens to do their thing. Allie and Maddie gave the audience an overview of cyberbullying and then quizzed the adults to make sure they understood the definition.

Tara, Eric, and Justin presents the stories of cyberbullying victims in the news, including Ally Pfeiffer, who made news this week, but tracking down and assisting law enforcement officials in identifying and arresting teens who had been cyberbullying her. Ally will be working with the teens in the coming weeks to help promote WiredSafety’s Don’t Stand By, Stand Up campaign.

They sold white bracelets with the slogan engraved in it. They then told the audience that each time they do something to stop or prevent bullying, they should color in a letter.

Students from the Annie Sullivan Middle School chapter of WiredTeens presented a series of skits they wrote about cyberbullying and how to deal with it.

Then Laura and Natalie presented an overview of the technology used by cyberbullies and the ways they use them.

Though WiredTeens don’t do in depth research project, the teens from Remington Middle School conducted a technology survey. Particularly interesting was the differences in texting between grades 6 and 8. Eight percent of 6th graders sent 100+ texts per day, but 32% of 8th graders sent 100+ messages and 60%

Probably the most interesting statistic came from the Franklin Teenangels survey of 730 middle school students in reply to the question, If someone asked you in person if you had been cyberbullied, would you be honest? While 45% said yes, about 6% said they weren’t sure, 9% said no and 40% said it depends on who was asking.

After the teen presentations there was a Q&A where the audience asked questions of the teens and Parry. The night ended with a challenge to the audience to help them in planning and funding their next goal. They want to rent a bus and spend a week traveling around the state making presentations to schools and communities.

For me, the most important comment was made during the preprogram preparation where Parry asked the teens the most interesting or exciting thing they learned or did since starting Teenangels. Of course many of the pointed to their presentation at the Summit in DC, but they all agreed with Brooke when she said she was amazed that they could really make a difference and help stop cyberbullying.

That’s empowerment!

Cyber Safety in the Age of Aquarius

2010-03-27T07:51:00.004-04:00

Last night I attended a Second Life education event billed as the Digital Age of Aquarius. It was a 60's style presentation by Kevin Honeycutt (In-world:Kevinski Braveheart) It was sponsored by ISTE on Hippy Island , a fun place to explore and find hidden professional development resources.

I've been on SL for two years, but consider myself a newbie, because I never got into building or costumes. I just walked around in my standard jeans and t-shirt, which is probably more like real life than Second Life for me.

For this event you were encouraged to dress in 60's style. Fortunately, I was using the new client which offers a variety of optional clothing choices. There really wasn't anything 60's in the choices, but in the 60's I was a huge Peter, Paul, and Mary fan and my kids were raise on me playing Puff the Magic Dragon on the guitar. So I figured this choice was very dragonish, and it was as close as I would get to a 60's costume.

If you have never seen or heard Kevin before, you have to make it a point. If we could clone him, our education system would soar. His presentation was all about empowering teachers and children to use Web 2.0. Not only does he make a case for breaking down the firewalls, he does it well, by providing powerful examples of students making a difference in the world. He shows how to model and teach good cyber citizenship even if you are behind a firewall that prevents it. There are analog ways of teaching students digital skill, such as using a bulletin board, paper and pencil to simulate Twitter in the classroom. He offers good solid suggestions for professional development that empowers teachers to become digital leaders, and he even writes songs about it.

Archimedes said, "Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I shall move the world." On his site, Kevin says, "I am a veteran teacher and a current educational technology specialist who gets up every day on a mission to help educators improve education by leveraging 21st century tools!"

First, listen to an audio file of his presentation and then visit his website. If it's a fulcrum, we can all be part of the lever that helps move the education world in the right direction.

More on ChatRoulette

2010-02-10T16:54:00.004-05:00

Hopefully, by now that you have all digested the initial announcement of the appearance of the new video chat stranger danger. Let's take a step or two back and put this in perspective.

Many times in the past, I've said that for the most part, kids are safe and want to be safe. Indeed, the research backs up my contention. However, the research also points out that there is a small part of the teen population that is at risk. These are the same kids who would be at risk even if the Internet didn't exist.

Beth Martin of Everest Middle School had a talk with her 16 year-old daughter and her friend. She said, "They didn't seem fazed by it. They told me that fact that I was shocked showed how naive I was about the web. Their response was that kids should be smart enough to know not to do that. Wow! That shocked me too. I think they are right about a lot of kids but I think kids on the fringe would try this."

The fact is that when sites like this come along, not only the kids on the fringe, but many mainstream kids will check it out. Curiosity is natural. For most, their curiosity will be quenched and it will quickly fade. However, it is still important to talk to kids about it, but do so by recognizing that most are safe. We have to begin to build a culture based on trust that treats kid as intelligent beings. We have to get them to help each other and held us help the few who might be in danger.

Let them know you realize that only a small group of individuals will be endangered by this kind of site and that THEY know who these kids are. They are the ones in the best position to help. Ask them to be alert to friends who might be hurt by using sites like this. Ask them to help their friends avoid trouble. Ask them to contact a trusted adult if they think someone might be endangering themselves.

It may or may not be effective, but it WILL start building a community of trust and perhaps it will result in at at least one tragedy being avoided. Let's treat our teens as online partners, not naive sheep.

Incidentally, when I went online to check this out. This is what the people on the other end saw. My web camera software does face movement tracking and allows me to overlay (wear) hats, wigs, masks, and distort my face numerous ways.

When kids saw this, one of three things happened.
1) They clicked off immediately
2) They called me a pedophile
3) They gave me a thumbs up.

Chat Roulette: A Gamble We Can Live Without!

2010-02-09T09:27:00.005-05:00

When I first started giving Internet workshops in 1995, there were a few
sites that I used to give people a snapshot of what the web was all about.

The most popular of these sites was called WebRoulette. You would click a button and be taken to a random web site.

But this post is not about WebRoulette. These sites still exist though WebRoulette has long since been bought by a casino site. Random web site generators still exist, but be careful. Some harbor spyware, but this post is not about spyware. It's about the 21st century version iteration of this phenomenon, Random Video Chats.

You read that right. If you go to chatroulette.com and click the start button, your web camera will start up in one window and you will be face to face with a random stranger in another.

I first heard about it in a Facebook post from Kerstein Creative that said, "The most unusual, intriguing, weird, frightening concept in social networking I've read about yet. (Can't say I've seen it, because I'm a little freaked out by it.)" and pointed to this article in the New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/news/media/63663/

After reading the article, I had to check it our for myself. The results were very much as described in the article. Here's a snapshot of what I saw. It really reflects the part of my block description that says "with great latitude given in the definition of human."

In a four minute period I saw 66 males and 7 females mostly in the teens and 20's. There were 22 connections that had their cameras blacked out and 6 "others". Others were cameras pointing at signs, walls, or other object.

The disturbing part was that of the 66 males, 6 were X-rated. There was one set of breasts displayed and unquestionably the most bizarre connection was this one.

Do I even have to say it? A web camera in the hands of an unsupervised teen, is an invitation to trouble. I understand that they might use it to talk to grandma or aunt Tillie, but do you want them talking to this guy? If your child has a web camera, at the very least, have a long talk with them!

NH Proposes Amending Law to Include Cyberbullying

2010-01-19T11:17:00.007-05:00

This is one of those posts where I have to point out that I'm not an attorney, nor do I play one on TV, but it's not going to stop me from putting my opinion out there.

NH House Bill 1523 is designed to provide schools with clout to enforce the state's Public Safety and Violence Prevention Act.

It adds definitions for bullying and cyberbullying and requires schools to set policies and procedures for dealing with it. It also mandates training for staff and the involvement of pupils, parents, administrators, school staff, school volunteers, community representatives, and local law enforcement agencies in the process of developing the policy.

Overall, I think the law will do a good job of addressing the issue. There are some provisions that I really like, and two items that cause me a bit concern.

Having community involvement in the development of policy is an good idea and the inclusion of students in the process even better.

I also love the idea that the law puts the emphasis on staff training, rather than requiring specific curriculum. My stance on this is well documented. Cybersafety and cyberbullying are part of online citizenship which should be naturally infused throughout the cults schools that do what they should be doing, but doesn't prevent parents from suing if policy and procedures are not followed. To many schools make a show of creating policy and then ignore them.

The first thing that concerns me is the requirement of the schools to report incidents to the state. This wouldn't be a bad idea if the state was providing resources, training, and funds to help support the goals of the law, but with out that, it is nothing but additional paperwork and liability placed on already overburdened school.

The next thing gives me concern is the definition that includes a one time incident. It appears to be to be an attempt to deal with incidents like the Megan Meier case, but this will become a rallying point for free speech advocates and possibly a basis for a Constitutional challenge.

Leaving it out wouldn't preclude acting against a single incident. I think the law has enough in it to allow following up on that kind of case. While excluding it wouldn't preclude following up on a single incident that is severe enough, it lessens the likelihood of abusing the law and raising the wrath of free speech organizations.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Education and legislation go hand in hand. One must inform and help the other.

Common Sense Cyber Safety

2010-01-12T18:28:00.003-05:00

The FTC has just launched Netcetera, a fee downloadable publication about Cyber Safety. It's aimed at parents and Teachers and offers good common sense information and advice. They will also send out free printed copies in English or Spanish. No scare tactics or sensationalism here. Just good solid information and advice. You can find out at the FTC http://www2.ftc.gov/opa/2009/12/netcetera.shtm and get it directly from http://www.onguardonline.gov/pdf/tec04.pdf

Internet Safety Technology Task Force Report Commentary

2009-01-17T15:13:00.006-05:00

Hi Folks. As you know, I’m the Educational Technology Director of WiredSafety. WiredSafety was a member of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF) that was formed last year, as part of an agreement between 49 Attorneys General and MySpace. I participated as one member of the WiredSafety team. The views express here are my personal views and not necessarily those of WiredSafety.

The ISTTF was run out of the Berkman Center at Harvard and headed by John Palfry who oversaw the activities of an amazing group of industry leaders, technology experts, Internet safety non-profits, and some of the leading researchers in the country. We were tasked to look into technology measures to keep children safe on social networking sites with a focus on finding reliable age verification technology. The final report was issued on January 14th, with headlines and mixed reactions from all quarters. I’d like to take a few minutes to give you my personal view of the situation at it stands.

If you have read the reports, most of the headlines focus on the finding that the Internet may not be a dangerous as the mainstream media has been presenting it and that cyberbullying and peer to peer confrontations pose more of a risk than sexual predators. The report indicated that most teens who want to be safe are safe, but there is a small population of at-risk youth that can fall prey to predators. In general, it stated that these teens, because of a combination of psychological and family life conditions, would be equally at risk off line as they are online.

Additionally, we concluded that while there were some technologies that provided ways for parents to keep their children safe, there was no technology that would scale up and be effective for the general population. For example, there were biometric devices that would sense physiological characteristics to insure the person using the computer was a child. This is something that an individual parent could do, but hardly something that could be mandated by legislation or implemented on a large scale.

The conclusions had the effect of upsetting some of the Attorneys General who have a quite different and understandable perception that is based on the significant number of arrests made through sting operations. They feel that the ISTTF has presented an erroneous picture of the situation. This is unfortunate, because I feel that a close reading and careful analysis of the report actually shows that both sides are describing very much the same situation from different perspectives.

It is much like the Indian fable of the blind men and the elephant. A group of blind men are asked to describe an elephant. One touches the trunk, one the leg, one the ear, etc. Each person describes the elephant from their personal perspective, but none of them sees the elephant as he is.

Let’s take a closer look at the elephant, or in this case the children who we want to protect. The ISTTF had no accurate way to determine exactly how many youth fell into the at-risk category, but the most commonly used figure was 3% of the online teens. To some that may indeed seem like a small sample, but let’s do some very simple math.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, there are about 42 million children between the ages of 10 and 19. It is estimated that more than 90% of those teens are online. If 3% of those teens are at risk, that means we have over a million at-risk teens. That number is certainly not in conflict with the arrest figures and the perception of the AG’s. On the other hand it is not in conflict with the idea that cyberbullying and peer to peer interactions are a very serious problem.

Cyberbullying has resulted in suicides and in that larger majority of cases it results in other psychological trauma, absenteeism, physical symptoms and a whole spectrum or reactions. Additionally, it impacts a much larger portion of our youth population. Even the most conservative estimate is that 30% of the youth population suffers from cyberbullying.

At WiredSafety, we conduct thousands of information surveys of students and our figures, because they are done without parent and in unthreatening settings, indicate that 85% of teens have experience or participated in online bullying in the past year.

If we now look at the bullies, the bullied, and the sexual predator victims as a group, all indications (anecdotal) are that the vast majority of sexual predator victims and potential victims are likely to either be cyberbullies or cyberbullying victims. So we aren’t talking apples and oranges here. When we talk about the bullying problem, we find that the potential sexual predator victims are part of that same pool.

The AG’s want and rightly need to focus on getting the predators off-line, The can also work with the industry, parents, community, and educators to deal with the cyberbullying problem which as we know from the Megan Meier case, can become a legal issue.

Government policy makers can put in place legislation that helps identify the at-risk group. Industry can fund and train online moderators and counselors, as well as working with the online community to mobilize and report abuse.

Finally and equally important, it is need for education on all fronts. Parents, teachers, and students, especially those who don’t have online experience and technical savvy, must be aware of the risks, the danger signs, and the appropriate actions to take when they encounter them. While well thought out and effective legislation is important, the real problem is a behavioral one, it is education and intervention that is most needed and will do the most good.

Like the blind men, AG’s and the ISTTF are seeing different parts of the same problem. If combine the views and use it to create a bigger picture, I think we have solid footing from which to move forward with first steps being additional research and an action plan to address the problems.

If you would like to help WiredSafety, please take a few minute to take our online survey.

Thanks!
Art

MyYearbook.com and Megan Meier

2008-05-22T14:55:00.001-04:00

As an organization WiredSafety talks to thousands of teens each month. While no one can actually give an accurate statistic on how pervasive cyberbullying is, our conversations with teens lead us to believe it is more significant than the press leads us to believe. That may seem strange because to this date, the press has done a pretty good job of magnifying the problem of pornography and predators. While cyberbullying seldom results in suicide, Megan Meier's death put the spotlight on cyberbullying.

WiredSafety had been working with Tina Meier, Megan's mother, to launch the Megan Pledge to get teens to begin dealing with the issue on a peer to peer level. Yesterday, MyYearbook.com launched the online Megan Pledge on their home page. People are taking the pledge at the rate of more than 1400 an hour. Of course this rate will slow as all users login. The significant fact is that there are more than 34 pages of comments and many of them are cyberbullying stories. It doesn't take a university researcher to see that this is a serious issue.

Al Capone and Internet Safety

2008-05-16T07:35:00.004-04:00

I'm sure you are all aware of the suicide of 13 year-old Megan Meier, a St. Louis teen who thought she was talking to a 16 year-old boy who was actually an adult neighbor.

Today, the U.S. Attorney in Los Angeles announced a four count indictment against, Lori Drew, the adult accused of being instrumental in Megan's death.

I think this is an extremely interesting case for many reasons. If you look closer at the indictment, you realize that there were no cyberbullying or harassment laws in place that could be used to get justice in this case. The US Attorney had to get creative and took a page from the Al Capone prosecution book. While there were laws against what Capone was doing, no one could get the goods on him for murder or other heinous crimes. However, they were able to put him away for tax evasion.

What has happened in the Megan Meier case is that the US Attorney has applied laws that are typically aimed at hackers and used the MySpace Terms of Service as a key portion of the issue. I am sure that this will catch the attention of the ACLU and EEF and you will be hearing charges that this prosecution is too broad and may be leading us down a slippery slope.

I seriously doubt that anyone will be prosecuted for minor violations of TOS as they might suggest. The US Attorney took great pains to emphasize that the decision here was made on the merits of this particular case. It was the death allegedly as a result of the actions of an adult online. That indeed is a serious case and anyone thinking that the US Attorney would be going after someone for anything minor is either delusional or paranoid.

Cudos to the US Attorney for seeking justice for Megan.

I love it when...

2008-04-27T18:15:00.003-04:00

I love it when students write to me about the lessons that I have on the WiredSafety website. Today I got one about my presentation titled, Beware of Geeks Bearing Gifts. It said:

HI,
My name is Eva and I listened to this for an assignment. It got me very interested though...

She then went on and asked my advice about a problem she was having with spam, a topic covered in the lesson.

While there is no magic "interest meter" I can attach to my lessons, email such as this is all the feedback I need to be reassured that I'm on the right trail by focusing on Cybersafety through Information Literacy.

Take 5... or is it Take 82,000?

2008-04-24T19:37:00.008-04:00

It seems as if every time you turn on the TV there is a news story about teenagers in trouble because of their online behavior. Everyone is scratching their heads wondering why and wondering what can be done. In part, that will be the topic of an upcoming episode of "Real Talk" with Brenda Blackmon on WOR-TV, My9.

Today, Ryan, one of our Tweenangels and I taped a segment for that show, but this entry is only peripherally about us. Ryan talked about advice that we give teens and tweens who encounter cyberbullying. We tell them to Stop, Block, and Tell and Take 5! Stop what you are doing and don't respond. Block the bully. Tell a trusted adult and then Take 5. Walk away from the computer and do something you love for five minutes.

While this is good advice, Morgan Simone, the teen who taped the next segment seems to have taken the Take 5 concept to heart and then some. As many youngster do, she had bully problems, but she also had good friends to help balance things out. That all changed when she moved away. As the new kid in school she was without friends and the subject of constant attacks.

Rather than lash out or attack back, this amazing 15 year-old didn't take five minutes. She took her experiences, her feelings and her insight poured out 82,000, words that became "I'm Still Here", a novel for other teens.

The title is testament to her spirit and subject of her dedication, that along with the book, seeks to instill hope in others who suffer as she did. She dedicates the book to those who felt as if they were not good enough, not beautiful enough, and just not accepted, because you can still proudly say "I'm Still Here."

With all the negativity in the world, I look at youngsters like our Teenangels, Tweenangels like Ryan, and other exceptional youngsters like Morgan, and realize that with future leaders such as these, there is hope.

Oh, and while I don't have a signed first edition Hemingway, I do have a signed first edition, Morgan Simone, and it may be worth just as much some day.

From the Frying Pan into the Fire

2008-04-14T15:19:00.002-04:00

If there is any doubt about the poor state of online safety and appropriate netizenship in this country, it should be erased by the two latest incidents. We are all aware of the Florida teens who brutally beat another teen for postings she supposedly made on MySpace. There was no remorse and little understanding of the consequences of their actions. I'm sure they had little or no idea of how serious their actions were.

Whose fault is that? Obviously, there is no easy answer, but I do know this. I began teaching Internet basics in 1995 and even at that early date, every one of my students knew the ramifications of that kind of action. I recognized that this was the world that they would be in habiting and I wanted to make sure they lived by a set of rules and guidelines that would keep them safe and out of trouble. Schools need to develop cyber citizenship!

Compounding the problem is schools that make the situation worse by not acting responsibly when things happen. This week, Jolita Berry, a teacher in Baltimore was attacked by a student. The majority of the class stood by and watched or cheered the girl on. One student went for help. One filmed it with a cell phone and then posted it on the Internet.

Apparently, before the video surfaced, the school's initial reaction was to blame the teacher for using a "trigger word". The student threatened to hit the teacher and the teacher said she would defend herself. Is saying you are going to defend yourself tantamount to inciting a riot?

Of course, once the video surface and word of this hit the media, the school's response was that they take the incident very seriously and it would be investigated thoroughly. Too little, too late. What measures were put into place to prevent this sort of thing from happening?

What should happen here? I don't know what the school will do, but personally I would expel the student and take serious action against the student who posted the video. How is it possible that someone can witness a crime and then post that video on the Internet without passing it on to the authorities? It would be interesting to find out whether there is a school policy about use of cell phones. If there is, certainly using it to film a crime in action and turning it over to authorities would be reason to excuse breaking the school policy, but not turning it over and then posting it to the Internet creates a serious breech of policy, if not a violation of law.

We have to stop turning a blind eye to this sort of physical confrontation. The more we ignore it the worse it becomes. We have to stop making people folk heroes for posting this kind of outrage.

What will happen to the person who went for help. I'm guessing he or she is worrying about becoming the victim of the next beating. It is a sad, sad day when brutality is perceived as not having serious consequences and acting against it results in fear from one's own safety. It is just so wrong on so many levels that it boggles the mind.

Can I Get a Dr. Here?

2008-04-12T19:40:00.002-04:00

Ok, it's time for some no BS talk. I'll begin by making it clear

that the opinion about the state or educational technology and

Internet safety education are my opinions and not necessarily those

of WiredSafety.

Thirty-eight years ago I was a new teacher sitting in classroom with fifteen other new teachers. The then Superintendent of Rockaway Schools, Bob Linette, was conducting the class and asked us one by one what we thought of the American educational system. One by one each person sung the praises of our system. I was the last to reply and when he asked me, I said it stunk. The silence and looks on the faces of the other fourteen people said volumes.

Without pausing, he asked me to explain. I asked him and the group what part of their day was the math part, what part was the science part, what part was the social studies part? I said we were supposed to be teaching kids about life and how to success. I failed to see how this achieved that goal. I felt that school should be more like life, that kids should be solving real world problem and doing real world work. When I was done, he just said, "You're absolutely right."

Those three words set the course of my career and from that day on, I never looked back. Ever since then I've been trying to get schools to change the way they deliver instruction. It's thirty-eight years later and things have changed very little. Yes, technology is now in the picture, but technology implementation without changing how we deliver instruction is not going to work. In many ways technology has worsened the situation. There was already disconnect between curriculum and the skills that the 20th and 21st century required. With kids knowing more about technology than the teachers, the gap became a chasm.

As a result, the state of educational technology infusion in this country is a shambles. I'm not talking about the cables, routers, and computers. They are nothing to brag about, but compared to the hardware, the effective implementation of technology is in such a state that if it was in an episode of M.A.S.H., it would be on a gurney, with Hawkey and BJ doing everything they can do to keep it alive as it was heading for the operating room.

Lack of visionary leadership, lack of technical support, lack of professional development, budget constraints, NCLB, pressure to perform on high stakes tests that measure all the wrong things, and other mandates that hamstring teachers, make them little more than paper shufflers and test tutors. Yes, there are pockets of excellence. There are exemplary schools and programs, and there success stories, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

I've spent the last ten years of my life trying to make a difference in this arena. Now I've retired from that life and have perhaps jumped from the frying pan into the fire. I'm attempting to develop Internet safety instruction that schools can use.

If you believe what I say about the state of educational technology in this country, then it isn't a stretch to realize that the state of Internet safety education is in worse shape. If teachers don't have the time or expertise to implement effective use of technology in the core curriculum, expecting them to implement Internet Safety instruction is total folly. It's like strapping a couch to the back of a sprinter and asking him to run a marathon.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm an optimistic masochist or because I graduated from Rube Goldberg High School and McGuyver High School, but I liked the challenge. Two years ago I started a program that I felt dealt with both problems at the same time. I coined the phrase

and began my program of CyberSafety through Information Literacy. It was a series of lessons that could serve both as professional development for teachers and Internet safety instruction for students. The lessons are aligned to the National EducationTechnology Standards and other core curriculum standards. Instead of being add-on curriculum, it could be integrated into the existing curriculum in a number of ways.

Inexperienced teachers could run the Flash based lessons and let me provide the instruction. Because the software allows teachers to control all phases of the presentation, including sound and sequence, as inexperienced teacher became more comfortable with the material,

they could make it their own by substituting their narrative for my audio tack and by selecting what to present and when to present it.

Now I think it's time to take the next logical step. We at WiredSafety have found that two of the most effective tools for getting teens to listen to our message is to have it delivered by other teens and to have the message wrapped around real stories about real people and real events. Our Teenangels have stories of their own that they relate. You can find out more about them by visiting Teenangels.org.

We at WiredSafety have stories activities and suggestions that we relate to parents, teachers, and teens in our presentations. Some of those stories are already contained in my CyberSafety through Information Literacy lessons. Over the coming weeks and months, I'm going to begin extracting those stories, add new ones, offer short suggested actions and activities, and create a library of 5-10 minute learning objects that teachers and parents can use whenever they have

time or whenever they see a teachable moment.

I'll blog about them here and post them on the WiredSafety site. As they begin appearing, I welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions.

Maybe together we can help Hawkeye and BJ get a patient off the critical list.

Why They Have Email Verification

2008-03-17T23:34:00.003-04:00

The subject line was "Welcome to MySpace" and the message began:
Hi Andrea -- Thanks for joining MySpace!
Here's your account info for logging in:
E-mail: AWOLINSKY_@_COMCAST.NET
Password: *******

It went on to provide a link for me to confirm the email address and open the account. I'd better make sure that I don't click the confirmation link or whoever set up the account is in business.

Ok, that's one of my email addresses, but my name isn't Andrea and I didn't open a MySpace account. What's going on? Is someone impersonating me? No, they're using my address and a different name. That's why the confirmation email came to my address. Lemme see what's going on here. I think I'll log in with the information provided in the confirmation message.

After I login, I go directly to the profile the person set up. Andrea says she's a 27 year old female from Cambridge, MA and that's all she has, but that's more than enough.

BTW - I've changed Andrea's name and location for obvious privacy reasons.

I'm going to assume that Andrea just made a typo on her email address. If her last name wasn't Wolinsky, I would have just gone to the account and canceled it and let her figure out what was going wrong, but I couldn't do that to someone with such a regal last name. :-)

With the little information she left, in about a minute, in a single search I was able to determine that she lived with her parents. I had their names, address, ages, and her phone number. A phone call and an email straightened thing out, but it just goes to show how things can go south in a serious way with the unintentional sharing of information.

In the end, no harm was done, everyone had a good chuckle, and I have another anecdote to tell in my presentations.

Webkinz Gets Best of the Web Award

2008-03-13T10:24:00.003-04:00

Each year we poll more than 12,000 teen and preteens to see which web sites they like the most. That's step one in a rigorous process that leads to the awards presented at at the annual Wired Kids Summit in Washington, DC.

After the results of the poll are in, the top 70 sites are examined by parents for safety and appropriateness. Once they have narrowed the candidates down, the final selections are based on the evaluation of WiredSafety's director, Parry Aftab.

This year the best of the web award went to Webkinz because they offer fun and entertainment for kids while protecting them from revealing personal information which could lead to cyberbullying, stalking and other potential dangers.

Congratuations, Webkinz!

The Megan Pledge - An Anti-Cyberbullying Campaign

2008-03-09T17:40:00.006-04:00

A few weeks ago I gave you a peek behind the scenes of the 8th Annual Wired Kids Summit. Today, I'm here to tell you about the major focus of the Summit. The suicide of Megan Meier that took place after a cyberbullying incident brought national attention to the problem that is running rampant with teens. A Tweenangel chapter in New Rochelle, NY has done something about it and we would like to turn it into a national campaign.

The tweens have initiated the Megan Pledge, a three part campaign to help stop cyberbullying. There are three parts of The Megan Pledge, a signed individual pledge, a group banner and a black and white polka-dot ribbons to wear and share. The pledge itself contains both statements and a set of promises. It is signed and witnessed and given to WiredSafety’s Megan Pledge volunteer team and sent back to WiredSafety where the pledges will be recorded and entered in a data base with the objective of getting one million signatures by the end of the year.

At the Wired Kids Summit, Tina Meier, Megan's mother and Deputy Director of the Megan Pledge campaign, presented the program along with tweens from the Ridgewood chapter.

A dedicated web site is being created and when it is announced, it will be with the endorsement and help of Facebook, Xanga, and Tagged, with others to follow as arrangements are completed. The site will have all the necessary information and resources to get a program started in your school. Watch for that in the coming weeks. However, there is no need to wait. If you would like to get a Megan Pledge campaign started in your school, just email me at awolinsky@3dwriting.com and I'll email you a starter kit.

Help fight cyberbullying. Be one in a million!

I Just Got Beat Up!

2008-02-29T15:36:00.003-05:00

IMVU is an avatar world/3D Chat/Social Network. I wrote about it a little after it was out of beta and had some serious concerns. I hadn't been back there since those early days and after reading an article about it, I decided to go back and check it out. There have been some changes for the better, but if my first trip back is any indication not a lot has changed.

If you click on Chat Now, you are randomly paired with another avatar. I found myself in the room with someone who opened with, "hey". I clicked on his home page and saw that he was a 20 year-old for TX.

I said, "hi, this is my first chat." Not exactly true, but I had forgotten so much about the interface since I was last there, it was like my first chat. His response was to walk up to me and begin beating me up! I said, "ouch?" and he said nothing. I followed with, "beating up on an old man?" (I'm assuming he visited my homepage and saw my age.) Still no reply, but he did walk up to me and tweak my ear. Again I tried to talk to him and asked, "what's with the bullying?" He left.

Actually, for me it was pretty funny to watch. I had absolutely NO idea how he got his avatar to do what it did and had no way of responding in kind, not that I would have. I can imagine what happens when two like minded immature individuals end up in the same room. Can you say, trouble?

My original concern has been answered by a change in their policy. Back then, you could search for anyone of any age. Now you can't search under for anyone under 18, but it wasn't the ability to search for teens that concerned me.

I sat down one day and searched state by state for anyone between 14 and 17 who was online at the time. Two things concerned me. First I was alarmed at the number of teens who were online during a time that they clearly should have been in school, (and probably were in school). But even that wasn't my real concern.

When you register, you have the word Guest tacked in front of your avatar's name. If you supplied credit card information and purchased your avatar, the Guest designation was removed. If I was gullible, I would have been shocked at the number of 13-17 year-olds that had given credit card information. Of course, some gave the information with the blessing of parents, some probably gave daddy's card information without permission, but my skepticism led me to believe that a significant number of the 13-17 year-olds were considerably older. The predator potential was significant.

When I first signed up, I thought the technology and concept was cool and kids would gravitate to it. I had concerns and I still have concerns. I'm not exactly a big fan of IMVU at this point, but I'll reserve further judgment until I spend more time there.

Harvard, tech firms seek to create safety Net

2008-02-29T09:03:00.003-05:00

It's a big step in the right direction, but regardless of what this task force accomplishes, it will only be a part of the solution. Without education and increased parental involvement, children will remain at risk.

3DWriting WiredSafety is Moving

2008-02-28T08:40:00.002-05:00

Well I'm not actually moving, but I am going to have it do double duty and merge it with my other blog, Truth, Lies, Rumors and Rumbles. If you are subscribed here and all you want is Internet Safety related posts, you don't have to do anything. I'll still be posting those kind of stories in both places, but if you are also interested in education related posts and musings on the human condition with great latitude on the definition of human, then maybe you should talk a look at TLRR. I hope to see you there.

Art

Wired Kids Summit Behind the Scenes

2008-02-09T14:05:00.000-05:00

On Feb. 6, WiredSafety.org held the 8th Annual Wired Kids Summit at the Cannon Office complex in Washington, D.C. From 9:00-2:00 panels of Teenangels and Tweenangels participated in discussions in front of congressional and industry leaders, but that’s not the subject of this blog.

Today I want to give you a peak behind the scenes so that you have a better understanding of WiredSafety and the amazing people who volunteer their time and effort to keep people safe online. You'll have to excuse the picture quality because they were taken with a cell phone. Better pictures will be coming in later blogs.

WiredSafety is the world’s largest Internet help organization with more than 5000 volunteers world wide. Aside from their regular duties as volunteers, a dedicated core of individuals led by Parry Aftab, pull together to plan and execute this summit. Meeting places are secured, invitations and RSVPs are processed, hotel and travel arrangement are made for staff, teens, chapter leaders, and chaperones.

All of this brings us to one day before the summit when everyone converges on D.C. and heads to the Marriott where teen, staff, and chapter leaders will be briefed on the coming day’s activities and final preparations will be made for the event.

Aside from the briefings, there are two other activities lined up for the kids. They are given an opportunity to meet and network with their counterparts from around the country while munching of a never ending supply of fruits, snacks, drinks, and pizza, but it isn’t all fun and games. Things get serious was the focus is placed on one of the majore announcements to be made at the summit.

The Assumption School Tweenangels have started an anti-cyberbullying campaign that was just presented on the Tyra Banks Show. Reacting to the suicide of 13 year-old Megan Meier, the tweens have started the Megan’s Pledge Campaign. After explaining the program to the rest of the group, all of the kids had the opportunity to hear from Tina Meier, Megan’s mother, who will be acting as the Deputy Director of Megan’s Pledge.

I’ll cover the pledge in more detail as I write about the summit in a coming blog, but for now, let’s get back to the behind the scenes action. At 5:00 PM the teens headed back to their hotels for some relaxation and a core of about a half-dozen volunteers stayed behind to take care of the food, printed material, and other supplies needed for following day.

That groups broke up at about 12:30 AM, but with the adrenalin flowing, there probably wasn’t a lot of sleeping done that night. I know I was blogging a 4:30 AM and met Parry in the coffee shop at 6:00 AM. By 7:00 we were all piling into cars and taxis to begin setting up.

The teens piled out onto the sidewalk just in time to help unload two SUV’s and a pick-up truck full of food and equipment. A rather stern D.C. policeman didn’t like where we were parked and told us we had exactly 2 minutes to unload. Well it took a little more than two minutes but two dozen teen and a half-dozen adults managed to pile everything on the sidewalk. All that was left was to get everything to the entrance a half block away and three flights up. Everyone grabbed packages and lined up single file to go through security.

What a sight that must have been to Representatives and staffers who had priority and were ushered to the front of the line as they arrived. The security guards were efficient, friendly, and helpful and I was really amazed at how smoothly things went.

Once everything was upstairs, signs were hung, tables were set, and all the necessary preparations were made. There was not a single idle hand and we were ready to go.

This blog hardly does justice to the people and the amount of work that went into the summit. The hard work and dedication of the WiredSafety volunteers is impossible to quantify. I’m proud to be a part of the organization and to be able to contribute what I can.

A Decent Proposal

2008-02-04T17:31:00.000-05:00

WiredSafety will be holding their 8th Annual WiredKids Summit in D.C. tomorrow. Members of the Jacksonville chapter of the Teenangels, make this tongue-in-cheek video about the research project that each chapter has to do as part of their training.

Education and Legislation

2008-01-30T09:13:00.000-05:00

New York has just proposed the Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act (e-STOP) to keep people safe online. In the words of Andrew Cuomo, "Today I believe we're proposing the most comprehensive, smartest, toughest law in the nation to keep people safe online, especially minors."

That it is the toughest and most comprehensive, there is little doubt. It may well be the smartest as well. Only a closer look and time will tell.

The bill would require convicted sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses, instant message screen names, and any other online identifiers and make it a felony to not report changes in Internet activity within 10 day. It would allow judges and the state's Parole Board to restrict the online activities of sex offenders and would ban many sex offenders from using social-networking sites.

That all sounds sensible, but reporting your logins and then setting up a second set is something teens do routinely to get around the "legislation" that their parents create. Why would we expect criminals to do any less. Yes, the penalties for a predator getting caught are now considerably greater, but that does little to help someone who has been victimized by an offender who is trying to get around the law and has no intention of getting caught.

It must also be noted that this law has no effect on sexual predator outside of New York who contact teens in New York, though at least 13 other states have legislation proposed to limit Internet activities of sex offenders.

When it comes to Internet safety, my mantra has long been education not legislation, but I've modified that somewhat. I've come to recognize the need for smart legislation and my mantra is now education and legislation. Legislation is often poorly crafted and reactionary. Even the best crafted laws can provide a false sense of security. If e-STOP is to be touted as the smartest law, the legislators need to publicly acknowledge its limitations, counsel increased vigilance by parents, and provide funds for the training of the public and teachers in the development of safe, responsible netizens.

Swim Team on Porn Site

2008-01-28T19:28:00.000-05:00

Photos of members of an Orange County, CA water polo team have found their way to some gay porn sites, much to the alarm of students, parents, and school officials. A quick Google search will yield dozen of hits to give the details.

The article on the KNBC web site indicates that "police confirmed they are investigating whether a dispatcher, Scott Cornelius, photographed high school players for gay-oriented sites. Cornelius was granted a photo credential to the 2007 Junior World Water Polo Championships at Los Alamitos last summer"

Based on that snippet alone, you can be sure we will be hearing more about this. While those pictures may turn out to be attributed to the dispatcher is irrelevant. Once ANY picture is posted to ANY web site, for all intents and purposes the poster risks losing control of the picture. Anyone can grab it and do with it as they wish. As illustrated by my Ditherhead story and accented by this story, any picture can take on a life of its own with unpredictable results.

The simple fact is that nothing will prevent predators, creeps, and perverts from doing what they do. This sort of tragedy is bound to happen regardless of what we do, but parents and children need to be wary of what they post so as to not become unwitting accomplices to the twisted minds that do this sort of thing.

How we go about accomplishing this is not a simple matter. If I had a magic wand, every school would have a course on cybercivics where students would learn safe, responsible netizenship. But I'm not Harry Potter and even if I could magically conjure up the courses, we would still need knowledgeable teachers who are capable of understanding the online world of the teens. There are precious few of them right now and until today's teens become tomorrow's teachers, the numbers will be woefully insufficient to meet the challenge.

One thing we can do is to get kids talking to kids. That's what WiredSafety's Teenangels are doing. I'll talk more about them in the future. Until then, talk to your kids about incidents like this and have them take a look at my lesson titles Put Your Best Foot Forward.

Hitting and Missing the Target at the Same Time

2008-01-19T10:50:00.000-05:00

I recently read a newspaper commentary on the latest moves by MySpace to make teens safer. It correctly points out that that kids can easily get around every one of the safety measures that have been put in place and then advises parents to "Yank his or her profile. Forbid your teen from joining any popular social networking site, including Facebook, Friendster and Xanga."

If a child is willing to do all of the things outlined in order to get around the safety measures, why would one think that they wouldn't just as easily work around the banning and forbidding?

By taking such an action, all a parent would be doing is ensuring that they would be cutting off lines of communication and eliminating the opportunity to discuss problems should they arise. Rather than making their child safer online, it could have just the opposite effect.

Communication, supervision and education is a better approach. How that comes about depends upon the interpersonal relationships of parent and child as well as the knowledge of the parent as to what message to relate and how to deliver. It is also a topic too detailed to discuss single blog entry, but a good starting point is to read the report to Congress made by Dr. David Finklehor, one of the nation's top experts in the field of child sexual abuse. It will help parents understand that children who want to be safe generally are safe. It will also give them a profile of the potential victim and an idea of whether their child fits that profile.

Confucius, Socrates, Twain and Internet Safety

2008-01-17T09:57:00.000-05:00

"Learn what your kids already know or will know soon," is a suggested line from some literature that will be sent to parents prior to a presentation I will give in April. When it was sent to me, I suggested that what children know is nowhere near as important as what they don't know and what they need to know.

It brought to mind a saying I first heard in junior high from Lyla Filippe, my 9th grade English teacher, but that's a story I will cover in my other blog, Truth, Lies, Rumors and Rumbles. It has been found as a Persian apothegm, in Sanscrit, and in the writings of Confucius and Socrates.

He who knows not and knows not that he knows not is a fool.
Avoid him.
He who knows not and knows that he knows not is a student.
Teach him.
He who knows and knows not that he knows is asleep.
Wake him.
He who knows and knows that he knows is a wise man.
Follow him.

As I thought about it in relation to Internet Safety, a quote from Mark Twain came to mind. "When I was fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have him around. When I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years."

In examining today's youth in the light of these two quotes, it seems to me that from about preschool age, a child knows not and knows that he knows not. As a result we teach him, but in the teens when it comes to many things, a child knows not that he knows not. The proverb advises us to avoid him, but I'm sure the proverb is talking about adults who know not and know not that they know not. In any case we have to teach teen and do it in a way that they come to the realization that that we do know a thing or two before they reach the age of twenty-one.

The adults I present to are people who know not and know that they know not, and thus must be taught so that they can pass the learning on the youngsters who know that they know not and to the teens who think they know it all.

In most of my presentations, I tend to deal primarily with the know it all generation and their parents. In April, I will be adressing parents in two different venues that span the age groups. There's a lot of territory to cover and it will make for an interesting two days.

All of this leads me to the Zen paradox of "The more I know, the less I know."

Something to think about?

Megan Meier and Fraud

2008-01-12T10:12:00.000-05:00

The fact that there were no charges filed after Megan Meier committed suicide as a result of bullying by an adult who assumed the identity of a teenage boy has outraged the public. There is no law that covers the situation and now various agencies are examining non-traditional ways of approaching the problem.

It brings to mind the prosecution of Al Capone for tax evasion. In this case, legal experts are looking into pursuing fraud charges. While this might satisfy some, it might created a dangerous prescient which endangers the right to anonymous speech on the Internet, a topic that has been discussed in many forums and upheld by the supreme course.

The consequences could have negative effect on law enforcement agencies who routinely use false profiles in efforts to trap predators. It could hamper whistle blowers and a range of other positive uses of anonymous speech.

While justice needs to be served, we must use restraint and foresight in the creation of legislation and the use of existing law to deal with the problem. The former will do little to obtain justice for Megan and the latter must be examined in light of possible negative impact in the future. A rush to either solution is ill advised.

The best way to prevent this sort of thing from happening in the future is public education. Carefully crafted legislation may be an integral part of the solution, but education is the keystone. Children and parents have to know the impact and consequences of cyberbullying, as well as how to deal with it. Lest you think that there were no consequences for the perpetrator in this case, you are wrong. Whether you think it is right or wrong, the vigilante reaction to the incident has taken a heavy told on the entire family.

What it Feels Like to be Bullied

2007-11-20T11:01:00.000-05:00

In order to better understand my take on cyberbullying and bullying in general, I need to provide you with some personal background information.

I was always a small shy child and as a result, I know what it's like to be bullied. How small was I? Well in the 9th grade I was 4'9" and 89 pounds soaking wet. However, I was athletic enough that kids my own size didn't bother me. On the other hand, I suffered at the hand of bullies who outweighed me 2 to 1 and towered over me.

Bullying was never really a problem until the 6th grade and that year there were two bullies who for some reason made it their personal quest to make my life miserable. One was the biggest kid in the school, who had been shaving for two years and I think was probably as old as some of the teachers.

I would wake up in the morning with my stomach in knots and spend recess trying to hide and avoid any contact with John. I spent as much time as I could in the lunch room making sure I was the last to leave. I wouldn't play in games, but would be a shadow to the teacher.

Three days a week, I had to wait after school for my mother to pick me up. That time alone was terrifying. One day, the message came through the grapevine that John was going to get me after school. I didn't know what to do. I'll confess that I never told my parents or my teachers about the problem. John's bullying was well known through out the school and I was hardly a his only victim, but he seemed to get away with it with impunity. I felt that I would have to deal with it myself and decided that the best defense was a good offense.

The cafeteria was in the basement of the building and we exited to the playground by going up a short flight of five steps through a wooden door that opened to the outside. On this particular day, rather than being the last one out of the cafeteria, I was the first one and John was not far behind me.

As soon as I got outside, I hid behind the door and looked in through the crack. When I saw John reach the top step, I swung the door shut as hard as I could. All I heard was a thud. John had a broken nose and was out of school for a few days. I have absolutely no idea I was not caught, but that doesn't mean that I didn't suffer any consequences.

I don't know which was worse, the fear that I lived with from day to day or the remorse over the action I took and what might have happened if John had fallen back onto the concrete instead of a dozen of my classmates.

I often dreamed of being able to bottle the fear that I felt each day and simply pour a quart of it over the head of any bully I encountered so that they would understand the implications of their actions.

As years went by, I realized that in many cases that would do no good. I realized the all too often these bullies knew that fear, because they were experiencing the exact same feeling when they went home. For me, my safe haven was home. For them, their safe haven was school and their terror was at home.

We are discussing the Megan Meir incident and bullying in general on the WWWEdu mailing list. There I made the point that the only way to stop the cycle of bullying is through a systemic approach. Bullying can be from peers or adults. As teachers we are required by law to report any signs of parental or sexual abuse. In NJ, all schools are required to have a bullying policy in place, but often it is not enforced . Many teachers aren't even aware that the policy exist.

I can't help but wonder how much bullying is tied to problems at home. My sense is that it is more than we want to admit. I think that stopping the cycle of parental abuse is integral to dealing with the bullying problem. It's not an easy fix!

Another Cyberbullying Suicide Comes to Light

2007-11-17T10:51:00.000-05:00

One of the things I stress at every presentation I give is to not over react when thing happen on the net such as receiving pornographic or explicit emails. Don't threaten to take away the Internet and realize that this sort of this happens often. Usually it's not because of anything the teen did. There are 40 billion emails sent daily and more than half are spam. Things like this are beyond anyone's control. It's the cost of doing business online. We talk about teaching kids how to deal with things like this and steps they can take to minimize the likelihood that it will happen to their children.

On the other hand, I stress that it's even more not to under react when they come to you about problems about cyberbullying. Last year Megan Meier committed suicide after an Internet relationship turned nasty. It is one tragedy piled on top of another. It appears that her parents gave her the right advice about not reacting to the taunts, but things went wrong. As things turned out the relationship was a hoax and the taunter was the mother of another 13 year old in the neighborhood.

CNN's Anderson Cooper did a segment on it and if I had my way every man, woman, and child in the country would have to view it, and understand that what happened to Megan can and does happen to others. Thousands of kids suffer every day because of cyberbullying. Obviously most do not end in tragedy, but every incident leaves scars.

Police said nothing could be done because no laws were broken. The prosecutor who originally declined to even investigate it, is now taking a second look at it. While it appears that there might not be any laws broken, I'm not sure about that. At the very least I feel there should be some kind of accountability on the part of the mother who faked the MySpace site and caused the incident. She was well aware if the history of bullying and depression that Megan faced. Her actions are inexcusable and she should be held accountable.

Two Days in Hammond, IN

2007-11-08T19:28:00.000-05:00

I just completed 8 presentations in two days to students, teachers, and parents from St. Sanislas and Bishop Noll Academy in Hammond, IN. While my vocal chords think they just finished the NY Marthon, it was well worth it. I always like it when I have the opportunity to talk to all of the stake holders in a school district. Whether they agree with all I say is nowhere near as important as having the opportunity to get everyone on the same page and providing a basis for discussion.

For this particular presentations I did quiet a bit of customizing to my PowerPoints and video selection. I also tried something for the very first time. In two of the presentations, I asked students to come up on stage and we did a quick impromptu podcast using my cell phone and published it through gcast,com. You can access them on the right side of this blog.

While talking to them about not sharing too much personal information I made the point of being aware of what your friends are saying and sharing about you. To add a bit of empahasis to the statement, I showed them our new Flash animation Beware of Your Friends Online. It gives new meaning to the old saying, "With friends like that, who needs enemies."

The kids were a great audience and I was both pleased and grateful for the large parental turn out

Social Justice and Cyberbullying

2007-11-03T20:07:00.000-04:00

Two days ago I was a guest of ERBU-TV's Daily Connections. I wrote about the non-airtime that I spent there on my Truth, Lies, Rumors, and Rumbles blog, but I'd like to talk a bit about the guest who appeared before me. Unfortunately, I don't remember her name, but when the show airs it will also be on the web and I'll publish the link here.

She was a history professor at the College of New Jersey and was discussing social justice with host Meredith Parker. The question came up as who's job it is to ensure social justice. She answered that everyone must do their part.

I couldn't help but think that when it comes to cyberbullying, that is the ONLY way that any progress can be made. Everyone had to do their part to stop or prevent cyberbullying. That means speaking out when you see injustice, not taking part in any activities, and doing whatever you can to create a bully-free environment.

Teachers, parents, and adults or all ilks must educate themselves and pass the message on to kid. Kids must realize that participating in these activities is just plain wrong and real people are hurt. Refusal to participate is just a start, but standing by silently when they see injustice is not enough. Some kind of positive actions needs to be taken, whether it's speaking out against the bully, offering support to the victim, or reporting the injustice to a responsible adult.

Yes, I'm asking a lot. Kids are kids and they pick on one another. I'm not diluting myself into believing a Utopia can be created. Maybe what I'm asking is Quixotic to the extreme, but that's the vision that's driving me and I will tilt at the cyberbullying windmill for the foreseeable future.

I'll be heading out to Hammond, IN tomorrow to spend a few days with students there talking about online safety and cyberbullying. Let's see if I can stay in the saddle. I'll let you know when I return.

UK Cyberbullying Study

2007-10-22T18:38:00.000-04:00

An article in the Cambridge Evening News cites a study from the Department of Children that "showed a massive one third of 12 to 15-year-olds had been victims of cyberbullying."

Used that quote to show that the word 'massive' was that of the reporter. I have to say that I disagree with the findings of the study and the use of the word massive. I disagree because it he uses the word massive to describe a statistic citing a 33% cyberbullying rate, what would he use to describe an 80-90% rate?

For quite a while, we at WiredSafety have been saying that the statistics are much higher than studies show, and at the risk of covering old territory, I'll explain my position.

There are two factors at work. The first is that many kids simply don't realize that they are being cyberbullied, because it is so pervasive that some kids just look at all but the worst instances as a normal part of online life. Unless the bullying is to the point where it is having a significant impact on their lives, they think it's something that happens to everyone.

Instead of simply asking kids have you ever been cyberbullied, we have to define all the different kinds of cyberbullying attacks and ask whether they have ever experience them. We are in the process of preparing a new free software tool that will do just that. I'll let you know when it's available.

Is There More to This?

2007-10-21T08:24:00.000-04:00

My focus has always been Cyber Safety through Information Literacy. As a result, I've come to the decision to expand the scope of this blog to include other educational issues that are in some ways related and that are, hopefully, of interest to the public.

Part of that decision was prompted by my desire to comment on a short article in today's paper. It might well be a subject for my Truth, Lies, Rumors, and Rumbles blog, but since Internet Safety can't be taught in isolation and this article seems to typify the same kind of paranoia that drives some scholastic decisions about Internet access, I felt that this blog has to take on more than a strict Internet Safety theme.

In Cape May county a 7-year-old was suspended as a result of the school's zero tolerance policy on guns. His crime? Well, it was drawing a stick figure shooting a gun.

In a statement that could well turn this incident into a Saturday Night Live news item, his mother stated that the gun was actually a water pistol.

Humor not withstanding, the idea of suspending a student for drawing a stick figure is ludicrous. Now if there was some sort of history and this incident was a culmination, that might be a mitigating factor, but even then I would question the action.

The job of schools is to educate students. This incident clearly calls for education, not suspension. Punishing a 7-year-old for drawing a picture of something he sees on a daily basis in the news, on TV, and in the movies is ridiculous. Heck, what would have happened if he drew a picture of the now famous Dick Chaney hunting incident. Would he be in juvenile hall?

Using the incident as a teachable moment would have been a far more productive solution. Finding a reading selection that teaches the students about the dangers of guns and discussing it with the class would have been a better course of action.

What next? Will we see a story about a boy who gets suspended for using his hand as a gun and gesturing the actions of committing suicide, only to have his mother tearfully explaining that her son has a nose picking problem.

How about exercising a little common sense when dealing with second graders?

Latest PEW Study Offers No Surprises

2007-10-17T15:32:00.000-04:00

The topic of the latest PEW Internet & American Life Project report is Teens and Online Stranger Contact. Among the non-surprises were the facts that teens who create social profiles or post photos online are more likely to be contacted online by people they do not know and that girls are more likely to have unwanted encounters than boys.

It states, "Teens who use social networking sites to flirt are more likely to be contacted by people they do not know once other factors are controlled for, although a similar effect is not seen in teens who use social networking sites to make new friends."

My first impression was, "Doh!" It brought to mind Senator Proxmire's Golden Fleece Award a few year back that was given to a study that found out why toddlers fell off tricycles. They spend $300,000 to find out it was a lack of muscular coordination.

While this kind of information about teens is hardly in the same class as the Golden Fleece Award, it did cause me to reflect further on the accuracy and interpretation of the study. On one hand, it along with other findings in the report, reinforces my contention and other emerging studies that teens are generally safe online and that the profile of a teen who is not safe online is very similar to a teen that is not safe off-line.

On the other hand, the study doesn't seem to address the role of chat-rooms in stranger contact. It seems to me that the same teens who use social networks to flirt and encounter strangers, may well use chat-rooms. If the survey didn't address this issue and didn't differentiate between where stranger contacts were made, it's possible that stranger contacts attributed to social networking sites are actually attributable to chat-rooms.

I'm not sure that this is really something that I am concerned about, unless the message is lost that kids who want to be safe are generally safe and that kids who indulge in risky behavior put themselves at risk.

Doh!

Julie Amero - Are we forgetting something?

2007-02-17T13:45:00.000-05:00

Are we missing something?

We've been focusing on Julie and all of the trial participants. Let's look at the students for a moment.

Follow Up #2

2007-01-15T12:40:00.000-05:00

Here's the original story.
http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070106/NEWS01/701060312/1002/NEWS17

As you are probably aware, this case is getting huge amount of press and coverage in the education world. Just do a search for Julie Amero and you'll get the story.

The education world feels that she has been railroaded and that the school district is to blame for the whole incident. My initial reaction was the same, but I felt that there was a lot I didn't know, especially since I was involved in investigating a similar incidents where the teachers were obviously guilty. The difference was in our case was that the school district's actions and procedures were exemplary.

Initially I hesitated to make any judgement, because when we made our investigation, it was based on firewall log files as well as content on the computer which painted a clear picture of the teacher's actions and activities leaving no room for arguments of accidents. In this case it appears that no such strong evidence existed.

This case seems to rest primarily on the existance of pornography on the computer. I have found no reference to activity log files that would paint a clear picture of the teacher's actions. Such logs that would include time spent on each page, a sequence of action, links followed and more would easily prove either the prosecution or the defence's contentions.

My feeling here is that the school district was obviously in the wrong in any number of areas, including being in violation of CIPA. The defence was incompetent, the prosecution was misguided, the forensics were sloppy, and the judge's actions were questionable.

The case has the potential of really making teachers think twice about having their kids use technology if they are going to be held responsible for accidents created by spyware and school district lack of support.

I'm sure that the appeal will find her innocent.

Art

Teacher Found Guilty Follow Up 1

2007-01-14T21:42:00.000-05:00

More information is flooding in about Julie Amero, the substitute teacher found guilty of accessing pornography in the classroom.

In my previous post, I reserved judgement until more fact were in, but in all honesty my gut reaction was that the teacher is innocent. It also appeared that the school district had woefully poor technology protection and protocols in place.

While I will still adopt a wait and see attitude and sift through more information as it becomes available, I feel that the trend appears to suggest a less than thorough forensics and less than adequate technology expertise on the part of the defence.

If the case was made primarily on the basis of simply finding pornographic images on the computer, rather than a careful interpretation of the log activity in conjunction with the images, it could very well be a serious miscarriage of justice.

If I were to make accusations about students and teachers accessing pornography based solely on the fact that images were downloaded to the computer when they were using it, I would be accusing a lot of innocent people.

Let's see what unfolds...

Teacher Found Guilty of Accessing Porn

2007-01-14T15:15:00.000-05:00

Here's a snip and a link to an article that appeared in the Norwich Bulletin this week.

Teacher guilty in Norwich porn case
By GREG SMITH
Norwich Bulletin

NORWICH -- State Prosecutor David Smith said he wondered why Julie Amero didn't just pull the plug on her classroom computer.

The six-person jury Friday may have been wondering the same thing when they convicted Amero, 40, of Windham of four counts of risk of injury to a minor, or impairing the morals of a child.
------------------------------------------------

As you may know, I was a classroom teacher for 30 year, 15 of them as a computer teacher. I'm a member of a number of educational listserves populated by thousands of teachers. Opinion on this lists is generally one of outrage and if the articles you read are accurate representations of the facts, they would probably be justified in their outrage, but I will neither rush to praise nor condemn this conviction.

While this may well be an outrage, it may also be a valid conviction. The problem is that there seems to be a great deal of information missing. I'd really like to see the trial transcript to see what kind of evidence was introduced by the prosecution, including log files and testimony of students.

Regardless, I'd like to weigh in with some additional perspective. As one who has been on the technical side of forensic investigations of teacher access to pornography, I know that in order to take action against a teacher even at the district level, there has to be a compelling amount of evidence in terms of log files that will prove any accusations.

(One of the many part-time jobs I had as I went though my teaching career, was that of store detective for a large department store chain. We had a strict standard about making stops. We had to be 100% sure the person took an item and we had to have had them in our sight from the time of the theft to the time of the stop. I applied that same kind of standard to any accusations I might have to make against a teacher or a student.)

I also work with police computer forensic experts and know the kind of evidence trail they require before taking legal action. That standard is just as high.

When I use to check logs, it wasn't unusual to find access to porn sites by both teachers and students. However, in almost every case it was evident from the log entries whether the access was accidental or intentional (or accidental followed by intentional).

Even in the case of a loop as described in the article, it would be easy to determine what actions were taken by the teacher and whether the access was a case of accidental access followed by "panic" or more intentional access.

The amount of time spent at each link and the activity undertaken at the sites accessed is all right there. Looking at a log file, an expert can picture the activity that took place during an incident almost as well as if they were sitting over the shoulder of the person.

The prosecution's contention that the person had to have clicked on links on the pages to get to some of the sites, seem to be the telling part to me and might point to some of the information not being detailed.

If one is caught in a loop, one might panic as they try to close one window and another opens, but they will find it difficult to explain why pages came up that could only be accessed by clicking on links within pages they had accessed. Then if the time spend on each page shows a pattern of viewing, the log evidence become even more compelling.

Again, I'll stress that I have not formed any opinion about the guilt or innocence of this particular teacher. I'm simply offering a perspective that isn't necessarily obvious to everyone. There is a lot of information not being offered by the media concerning this particular case, but there are some sad facts that we have to face. Some teachers DO access porn and some DO take sexual advantage of students. We should neither rush to judgement or defence of ANYONE accused of sexual misconduct.

I will add an additional piece of food for thought. In many cases where teachers are found by a school district to be participating in inappropriate sexual activities online or even face to face, the teacher is often given the opportunity to resign quietly and then moves on somewhere else and continues the activity.

Take it for what it's worth...

Art

Violent and Viral Videos on the Web

2007-01-06T12:14:00.000-05:00

Hi Folks,

I was on the Today show this morning for a short segment that was prompted by the accidental deaths of a 6 and a 9 year-old boy both of whom were imitating what they saw on the Saddam Hussein hanging on the web. The lengthy discussion I had with the producer the day before covered a lot of territory, but I knew that the segment would only be 5 minutes. The segment began with a news report that covered the hangings and the Jackass type viral videos that kids are imitating with sometimes tragic results. The segment did little more than raise a million question, a few of which I would like to pose here.

To my mind, kids who are doing what we are witnessing are in most cases just being kids. Kids do dumb things. I remember jumping off the roof with a sheet as a parachute, I was about 14, not 6 and I had done some pre-testing. I first made sure I could survive the jump without the parachute. OK, now that we have established the stupidity of youth, what impact is the web having on brining that stupidity to the forefront? Certainly, there was no web when I made my jump, but I got the idea from somewhere. If the web was there, would I have jumped from greater heights or would I have researched parachutes first and found the futility of my efforts before I put myself in danger. One could argue either way.

So what is the effect of viral and violent videos the proliferate on the web? Is it the availability that is the problem, is it something else, or a combination of factors? I feel it is definitely a combination of factors, but will hold off on elaborating except for one line of thought.

We all know about the technology gap that exists between adults and children, but we are not really that aware of the increased isolation between adults and children or the causes. That isolation began with the creation of public education. Prior to that, children were integrated into adult society at an early age. By the time they hit puberty, they were interacting regularly with adults who served as their role models and mentors. As soon as school came along, children were segregated from the adult world and peer influence was a much greater contributor to their behavior. It almost immediately gave rise to "coolness". As money found its way in the hands of the youth, Madison Ave. jumped on the cool factor and further defined the lines between youth and adult and in fact contributed to a "class structure" within the youth society.

As technology progressed TV became the next big isolating factor. We tend to think about families huddled around the TV in the 50's & 60's, but by the 70's TVs began appearing in kids' rooms and today 77% of them have TVs in their bedrooms. Add to that the isolation created by the technology gap, and compound it with computers moving into kids' rooms and we have problems. Oh let's not forget the increase in single parent homes and latch key kids.

So two immediate questions come to mind.

1) What if anything, can be done to reconnect kids with adults?
2) Considering that this isolation started with schools, what should the role of schools be?

I've sent this post to members of the WWWEdu mailing list (about 1800 educators around the world) and will write about their responses after they come in.

Art

Video Resources for Online Safety

2006-10-15T13:27:00.000-04:00

Podcast version

Translating the stranger danger message from the face to face world to the online world is a difficult task. Young children can easily be taken in by a predator pretending to be a teen or fall victim to scams or hate sites. Even net savvy teens who intellectually understand that a stranger is anyone they don't know face to face, may engage in conversation with a stranger claiming to be a 14 year old boy or girl. The longer that conversation continues the greater the danger.

In an effort to get the message across to teens, tweens, and adults, WiredSafety.org has just posted a series of videos and public service announcements designed to deliver the message and get conversations started between teens and adults.

The video resource page located at http://www.wiredsafety.org/wiredlearning/videos features the 4Ps video and the You Never Know series of public service announcements.

The 4Ps is a video by Parry Aftab that covers the dangers of Predators, Pornography, Privacy and Piracy.

The You Never Know series created by the Child Safety Research Institute, a Canadian partner of WiredSafety, is a series of Flash animations that portay a teenage boy or girl online with who they think is another 14 year-old. Each animation starts the same way, but has a different ending. It not only gets the stranger danger message across, it shows teens that predators may not be the only ones on the other end of the keyboard and can open conversations about cyberbullying and monitoring of communications.

These and other videos on the page are available for use by parents and teachers as stand alone activities or in conjunction with the Cyber Safety through Information Literacy learning activities at http://www.wiredsafety.org/wiredlearning

One way parents can use these videos is to go online a download one that you want your child to see. Put it on the desktop of the computer they use and allow them to find it on their own. Once they open it, their curiousity will probably force them to ask you where it came from. That is the perfect opportunity to begin the Internet safety conversation.

Take some time and go explore the video resources. They are there for downloading. They're free, there's no registration required and no hoops to jump through.

Stay tuned for more ideas on how you can use the learning activities and videos to help keep kids safe online.

This is Art Wolinsky for WiredSafety reminding you become cyber safe and information literate.

Blogging Concerns of a Parent

2006-09-12T17:50:00.000-04:00

Parry gets hundreds of emails a day and handles almost all of them personally. From time to time she forwards one to me. Recently she received a message from a concerned parent. Her son's middle school had sent home a notice that they were going to some of their students bogging on Classblogmeister.com. She was concerned about her son's use of the Internet to post his writing.

This is a concern I hear daily from parents and teachers. I previously addressed concerns about social networking in Over reaction to Social Networking and Is MySpace a Train Wreck. In this post, I'll offer you the response I sent to the concerned parent.

First let me ease your mind about the site. It is run and created by David Warlick. I know him very well and he is one of the leading educators in the nation. The site is set up with student safety and privacy at the forefront. It is set up so that all of the postings are under the teacher's control. The postings password protected and are not public. The student accounts are created and controlled by your son's teacher. He gets to see anything and everything before it is posted and it is only available for reading and comment by people the teacher okays (usually classmates or other other classes the teacher may be collaborating with on Classblogmeister). He also has complete control over the content and can edit or delete. As far as safe blogging goes, it is probably one of, if not the safest blogging site on the web.

As far as blogging in education goes, it is my opinion that it is one of the most powerful tools available for developing writing skills in students. Keep in mind, more than 1/3 of all teens online already have personal blogs of some sort. A large number of them are at social networking sites and kids are using them without proper instruction. I fell is it important for teachers to model proper, effective, efficient and responsible blogging so that kids can learn the proper way to use this important journalistic tool.

With all that said, it is up to the teacher to use it properly with the class. While am a strong supporter of blogging in education, know David, and Classblogmeister, I don't know your son's teacher. However, I do know quite a few teachers who use his site and are doing a commendable job, both because they are modeling responsible online communication and they are putting in a lot of time and effort to do so. Setting up and managing a blogging environment for students is no easy task and it is very time consuming. All of the teacher I know using the site are very dedicated.

Finally, just visit David Warlick's blog and ask yourself whether you would want your son learning from this model or the blogs of his peers who are not getting guidance from a teacher.
http://davidwarlick.com/2cents/

I hope that helps.

Art

Moving Damage

2006-09-12T17:46:00.000-04:00

In August, I changed hosting services for my web site and this blog. For the most part the move went smoothly. However, when I went back to check a few past blog entries, I noticed that some audio and picture files were lost or damaged in transit. Unfortunately, I do not have backups of some of the files. My apologies for any inconvenience.

Buffalo Internet Predator Roundtable

2006-09-03T10:32:00.000-04:00

Podcast version 4.2 meg

Well, I ended the previous blog with "So long from Buffalo", but I'm afraid I have to open this one with, "Hello from Buffalo."

I'm sitting here in the airport waiting for a flight that is being delayed because Ernesto is visiting NJ right now and causing delays at Newark. Compounding that is the fact that the flight before mine is being delayed because it has tire trouble and has to wait for another flight to arrive with new tires for the plane. We just got word that that plane is now airborne. Of course it is coming out of Newark.

...and it's kind of ironic that the reason I'm here in Buffalo is because I had a flat tire on the way to the first round table.

But enough of my travel saga and on to the roundtable discussion of Internet Predaors. Conducting the meeting were:
NY Assemblymen Jack Quinn, Jim Hayes, Joe Giglio, Steve Hawley, and Mike Cole.
Roundtable speakers were:
Art Wolinsky from WiredSafety
Ed Suk the NY Director of National Center for Missing and Exploited Children,
Veronica, Robin, Jeff, and Lizabeth Block (a family impacted by a sexual predators)
FBI Special Agents Karen Ferguson
U..S. Attorney Terry Flynn
U.S. Attorney Witness Coordinator Sharon Knope
Child Advocacy Case Coordinator Candice Kopti
Erie County DA Sexual Assault Chief Roseanne Johnson
NYS Attorney General Senior Investigator Mike McCartney
Erie County Sheriff Tim Howard
Erie County Sheriff's Office Dept. Police Services Chief Dennis rankin
Erie County Sheriff's Office Detective Sue Puma
Town of Amherst Councilmember Shelly Schratz
Buffalo Police Detective Lieutenant David Mann

After opening remarks by each Assemblyman the speakers took about five minutes to introduce themselves, their organizations, and what they do that works. The members of the roundtable were impressive in their credentials and their messages to the Assemblymen. For the most part they offered solid suggestions and advice to the lawmakers.

Two themes came across consistently, namely the need for a substantial increase in education and more teeth in legislation. While everyone agreed on the need for greater education, there was a mixed message concerning legislation, which we all know often impacts education.

A parallel thread in the conversation was the number of teachers involved in online sexual predation and inappropriate conduct. It was pointed out that in many cases teachers leave on district under a quiet cloud and surface elsewhere only to be exposed when an incident reaches the police. A number or participants called for stronger regulations concerning the reporting of sexual misconduct by schools, specifically private schools. There was also a call for legislation that moves sexual contact by a teacher from a misdemeanor to a felony.

A particularly poignant portion of the program was testimony from the Block family. During the conversation Victoria talked about MySpace.com. The discussion
of social networking at that point made it clear that there was fairly wide range of knowledge of the subject on both sides of the panel.

Assemblymen, law enforcement, and social services people on the panel were all experts in what they do. They have forgotten more about their jobs than I know. On the other side of the coin is the fact that I was the only educator in the group and the perspective that I offered was one that needs to be heard.

The message I tried to get across is the fact that legislation is a double-edged sword. In their zeal to help protect children they sometimes created laws that hamper the ability of schools to educate the children in safe, responsible, effective online communication.

I cited DOPA as one such law that has the potential to undo much of the good that is being done by schools in the area of online publishing and journalism. On the other hand, the state level legislation they were trying to implement was aimed in the right direction. It was designed plug loopholes in laws that have prevented law enforcement from prosecuting predators.

Ultimately, it is the schools and the parents who will be primarily responsible for supervising and teaching children about safe, responsible netizenship. I urged them to keep that fact in mind when they draft legislation. I urged them to talk to teachers about how proposed legislation might impact their ability to make kids safer. Finally, I urged the to continue their legislative focus on the predators and assisting law enforcement in their job.

I was very glad I made the trip to Buffalo, even with my comedy of errors. The assemblymen were eager to listen and learn, I learned a great deal listening to the other members of the panel, and hopefully my message on behalf of education and the generation that will be leading us in years to come, did not fall on deaf ears.

When it comes to Internet and schools, education is the answer. Rather than legislate behavior, facilitate learning. That's the message we have to get across.

And now for something completely different...

2006-09-01T14:03:00.000-04:00

This was going to be a podcast, but I don't have time to record it before hopping on the plane. For those of you reading this blog for online safety information, news, or tips, you can save yourself some time. This entry is just a chronicle of events that happened to me on my last two speaking engagements. It may well stand as a monument to my stupidity, but what the heck. No one's perfect. So here goes.

Last week I was invited to participate in a two hour roundtable discussion on crime sponsored by the Republican Assembly in Carmel, New York. After a quick trip to Google maps, I saw that it was about a three hour drive, so I accepted the invitation.

The morning of the roundtable, the forecast was for rain. I wasn't looking forward to a hour drive in the rain. I headed out the door at 5:00 AM, a full five hour before the start of the event. Plenty of time, right?

Obviously, by that question, you have surmised the answer was a resounding no. I got about an hour away from home when from the rear of my car came a sound that sounded like a dozen ball bearings the size of tennis balls in the tumble dry mode.

It was raining buckets and I had no intention of getting out to inspect the damage, but from the sound of it, I thought my 1989 RX-7 convertible was history. Fortunately, because I own a motor cycle, I had to take the RV AAA policy to have it covered. That includes towing for 100 miles and roadside repairs.

I didn't anticipate any repair here, but being about 50 miles from home, the towing would be a must. AAA said I would have a flatbed within 30 minutes. An hour later it arrived.

Grabbing my umbrella, (at least something was going right) I hopped into the truck. After asking what my problem was, I told him that I thought I had blown the rear, and that I would need a 50 mile tow. With AAA RV, no problem, right?

Wrong. We were on the Garden State Parkway and all he could to is tow me off. He could tow me to his shop where I could call for another tow. (Thanks Parkway Authority.) He suggested I call AAA so that they would be there when we got there and then got out to deal with my car.

A few minutes later he had the car on the truck, but I had decided to wait a few minutes to make call because I didn't want them getting there before us. Good idea, right?

Got you this time. It was a good thing I didn't call.

When he got back in, he asked what led me to think that I had blown the rear. I told him about the sounds. He said, "You do know you have a flat, right?"

DOH!!! It wasn't the rear. I had felt absolutely no difference in the way the car handled when it was flat. I would have expected a flat a 65 mph to give some other warning other than a sound that was unlike the sound of any flat I had encountered in the past. Well, at least I wasn't going to be new car shopping.

The plan was to go back to his garage, see if he had a tire, and get me back on the road in time to make the roundtable. No such luck.

He had neither a new tire nor a used tire. By the time anything opened in time to buy one, it would be too late to make the roundtable. I called and let them know I wouldn't be able to make it on time.

I only had a donut spare and if you know anything about them, they are rated at about 50 mph for 50 miles. Once you go 50 miles on one, it is basically ready to die of old age. So 120 mile at 65 mph in the rain, was not an option.

He mounted the donut and instead of taking the Parkway home, I took to low speed Rt. 9 route and made it home and sent a follow up apology e-mail.

They were very understanding and told me that they were having a similar bigger event in Buffalo on Sept. 1, but hesitated to invite me, because it was so far away.

After thinking about it for a while, I decided to accept this invitation, but this would not be a drive. After checking flights and hotels, I didn't find any bargains, but neither would it break the bank.

I almost always fly out of Philadelphia even though Newark is a few minutes closer. I just like Philly better. Parking is easy and not three miles from the airport like Newark.

On Aug. 31, I left home at noon for a 4:30 flight and the hour and a half drive to the airport. Plenty of time even with the heightened security at airports, right?

Well, I'll let you wonder about this one as I continue to part to of my monument to stupidity.

You know how you sometimes drive on "automatic pilot" on trips that you make over and over and over? We'll that was me today. About an forty-five minutes into my trip to the airport I had reached the Marlton circle. As my peripheral vision picked up a Turnpike sign, I little voice in my head shouted in a not too friendly tone, "Hey, idiot! You're going to the wrong airport!!!"

Well, I shouldn't have any problem unless the TSA admonishment to to arrive three hours early we really true. Well, I'll try to make this short. I arrived at Newark parking lot by 2:00. It took a half-hour to get to the terminal.

I had checked-in online and printed my ticket last night. At least I could go right to security. Crossing my fingers, I stepped into the terminal, up the escalator, and toward security where I saw a line that was at least 5 or 6 people long.

The TSA agent check my ID and wished me a belated birthday (two weeks ago).

I thanked her and about a minute later, I was stepping through the metal detector. Where another agent was in conference with the x-ray operator. He asked to see my ticked and said, "Is this your bag?"

"Yes..."

"I'm going have to check it. After you get all of your things, please step over to that table."

I had carefully planned to contents of my carry on luggage to avoid this kind of thing. What could it be? As it turned out, for some reason, the belt I had packed showed up very dark on the x-ray.

Checking the departure board, I saw that my flight had a gate change, but was on time. Even with all that I had an hour and a half to kill, or so I thought.

I stopped a Pizza Ono in the terminal and had a late lunch. Listened to my iPod for a while and rested my eye. Then I made my was to the gate and started writing this.

The flight was scheduled to board at 3:50. It is now 4:22 and the flight is being delayed with a new time of 5:30, because our plane landed in Terminal A and we are in Terminal C. They have to tow the plane over here.

If their estimate is as accurate as AAA, I might be here for a while.

Ooops... Prophetic words... I just looked up and our new time is now 5:44.

Okay, that's all for now. I'm going to save battery power and sign off now. Hopefully my next entry will be a very short one from the hotel in Buffalo.

Well I'm in Buffalo, but it's 10:00 PM and as you may have guessed, things have not gone all that well.

Right after I signed off they updated the departure time to 5:14 which made everyone happy at least until 5:14 passed and we were not yet on the plane. We eventually made it to Buffalo at 7:15.

I made it to the hotel by 8:00, settled into the room, and to my delight found that there was free internet access. I checked my mail and the found a message from Carrie that contained the attachments I had asked her to forward to the folks running the Buffalo roundtable. That meant she has sent them.

Finally things seemed to be falling into place. I was in the middle of a great roast beef sandwich when I got a call from Carrie. The email she sent to the Buffalo folks kept bouncing.

After finishing the sandwich, I located the business center so I could print out the attachments. More good news. The printing is free. I sent the first page to the printer and saw the dreaded message, Toner Low, along with the streaked printout that attested to the validity of the message.

I called the front desk. No one would be able to do anything until tomorrow. So it was back to the drawing board. Fortunately, I had a bit of experience with low toner techniques and did something I dubbed the HP rhumba. You remover the toner cartridge from the HP printer and shake it too and fro to redistribute the toner. Each time you do the dance, you can get a few more clear copies.

Eventually I eeked out enough copies to take with me in the morning. Who knows what adventures await me in the AM. Only time will tell.

It's 9:30 AM and I'm sitting in the meeting room. I made it, but not without one or two more mishaps. At the risk of being picky, I have to mention that breakfast was less than what you would expect from $9 for two eggs, toast, juice, and coffee. For those of you who know me and know that I will eat anything you can pierce with a fork, complaining about food is not something I do very often. The over light eggs were over hard and dripping in butter to the extent that the cholesterol police would put them on their ten most wanted list and I'm still burping up the garlic from the one home fried potato I tasted.

The roundtable is from 10:00 to 12:00, so after breakfast I went to the front desk to request a 1:00 check out. That was no problem except that when I tried to go back to the room to get my things for the meeting, my key wouldn't work.

After getting a new key, I walked the three blocks to the meeting and didn't even have a close call with traffic. When I got there I met Kathleen Lisson who's mail was bouncing and to my relief, it wasn't another brick added to my monument of stupidity. She told me her email was over quota.

I'll cover the meeting in my next blog and hopefully end this entry with no more than a sentence or two.

Well the roundtable is over. I just had another great roast beef sandwich and I'm waiting for the airport shuttle. So rather than wait for the other shoe to drop, I'm going to post this blog and work on the next one that will cover the roundtable which was very interesting.

So long from Buffalo...

No DOPA This...

2006-07-25T19:08:00.000-04:00

Podcast Version

Yesterday, I got a call asking if I would be willing to take part in a Congressional briefing session on Internet Safety. My initial reaction was to ask if it had anything to do with DOPA, because if it did my commentary would simple. The name says it all.

To my relief, it had nothing to do with DOPA and is actually (IMHO) something good coming out of DC.

The session was a round table conducted by Democratic Representative Melissa Bean from IL and Bart Stupak from MI.

At the table were representatives from iSafe, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and WiredSafety.

The discussion was wide ranging and included social networking, child porn, cyber bullying and less "glamorous" issues such as phishing and identity theft.

We took a look at some of the problems, what is being done about them, and what can be done.

The session was in part conducted to raise awareness in the media and public for Representative Bean's SAFER NET Act (H.R.4982).

If it is passed, the merits of the bill will be witnessed by its implementation, but from what I see, it is a big step in the right direction. It seeks to establish and Office of Internet Safety and Public Awareness.

Rather than seeking to regulate with the ineffective and restrictive broad brush strokes of DOPA, this bill seeks to identify exemplary programs and best practices, coordinates efforts of diverse organizations, promotes a national public service campaign, and provides grants to state and local governments.

In Representatives Bean and Stupak, I see two people who are genuinely concerned about Internet safety. How much DC politics will impact the implementation is something we'll have to wait and see, but DOPA it's not! I have my fingers crossed.

To see the bill in it's entirety, go to congress.gov and search by bill number or sponsor.

Until next time, be Cyber Safe and Information Literate.

2006-06-24T00:28:00.000-04:00

Summit Slideshow
Slideshow from the WiredSafety Community and Social Networking Summit in Westchester, NY

WiredSafety Summit Part 2

2006-06-23T20:02:00.000-04:00

Podcast Version

I have to begin this blog with an apology. You will have to rely on the podcast audio version of this entry. Most of the text version was lost. After typing this out and recording it, I inadvertently closed the file without saving it. As a result most of the text was lost and my schedule prevents me from rewriting it. At least I can offer a few paragraphs.

On June 21st, the Westchester, NY Executive's Office hosted WiredSafety's First Annual Community and Social Networking Summit. The fist half of the day was a closed session with law enforcement and members of the industry including executives from Xanga, Bebo, Facebook, Piczo, and Tagged. The second half of the day included invited members of the public spanning all areas from regulators to parents and the media.

What made the summit unique was the participation of youth as equal partners in the process. During the morning session members of the WiredSafety Teenangels participated in discussions of what law enforcement needs to know when they go under cover. After all, no one knows how to be a 12 year old better than a 12 year old.

During the lunch break the teens circulated with guests were doing face to face social networking, that is until they stopped at the table where they got a peek at some things Disney will be launching soon. It was like a traffic jam on the Tapanzee Bridge.

At lunch, the group was addressed by FCC Commissioner Pamela Jones Harbour, who discussed regulations as they currently apply to the industry and offered tips to teens and parents about keeping save online.

After lunch Tiffany, one of the original Teenangels, officially introduced the group and launched the afternoon session, which included more than three dozen speakers on three panels who addressed the Facts, Fears, and Future of Social Networking.

...Lost text begins here.

Partial List of Presenters

THE FACTS

Robin Raskin - Advisor to Yahoo Tech.
Della Curtis - Coodinator of Library Media Services for Baltimore County.
Steve Parkis - Head of Premium Products for Disney.
Harry Valetk - Dir Online Privacy Online - Software Rating Board
Jeff Mandelbaum - Investment advisor
Rossell Thompson - Former FTC chairman & Tagged Chief Privacy Officer
Joselle Shea - National Crime Prevention Council
Paige Ralston - Recording Industry Association of America
Mark Ginsburg - President of Xanga
Margaret Sullivan - Technology teacher and Teenangel chapter leader

THE FEARS

Paul Gillespi - Det. Sgt Toronto Police
Steve Klein - NY Attorney General's Office
Mike Delohery- Chief of the cybercrimes unit at Westchester DA.
Andrew Donofrio- Head of Cybercrime unit in Bergen County.
Kim Kennedy - Producer of the CBS Early Show and CBS News
Dana Castelvecchi- Parent
Allan McCullough - Child Safety Research & Innovation Center
Allan Kush - Executive Director of WiredSafety
Tom Maurer - Warren County, Ohio Sheriff
Mary Ellen and Jenna - Teenangels

THE FUTURE

John Haynes - Korn Haynes Advertising
Andy Korn - Korn Haynes Advertising
Art Wolinsky - Director of Educational Technology - WiredSafety
Kelli Emerick - Principal, IT Policy Solutions
Catherine Bolton - Exec. Dir. PRSA
Joanne McNabb - Chief, CA Office of Privacy Protection Dept of Consumer Affairs
Lisa Rountree - Disney Mobile
Michael Birch - President of Bebo
Chris Kelly - General Counsel - Tagged.com
Kathy Zanonic - Chief Privacy Officer Verizon
Marty Schultz - CEO of Imbrella
Connie McCue - Principal - St. Elizabeth's School, Wyckoff

First Annual WiredSafety Social Networking Summit

2006-06-22T15:11:00.000-04:00

Closing Video (6 Meg)
Parry Aftab's Social Networking Summit - Part 1

Yesterday in WestChester, New York, the County Executive's Office hosted the First Annual Community and Social Networking Summit, organized by Parry Aftab of WiredSafety.org. Principals from Xanga, Facebook, Bebo, Piczo, Tagged and other social networks, along with law enforcement, software and recording industry representatives, regulators, venture capital and financial leaders, parents, educators, and teens came together to examine the Facts, Fears, and Future of Social Networking.

The video above, is a Public Service Announcement created at Southern Regional High School, in Manahawkin, NJ with music provided by student in Southern's Vocal Music classes. It was used as the closing piece for the summit and acceneted one of the recurring themes of the day. In my next podcast will provide a closer look at activities of the day.

The Net Use Generation Gap

2006-06-06T11:39:00.000-04:00

Podcast Version

A few weeks ago I came across an interesting set of survey results from the PEW American Internet Project. They had compiled results from a variety of different surveys to paint a picture of daily internet activities of adults.

I thought is would be interesting to see the difference between adult use and teen use. The PEW report showed the results from fifty nine internet activities. I chose fifty of them and created an online survey for teens to take.

Even though the survey sample is currently small (c. 200), not scientifically accurate, or anywhere as controlled as the PEW surveys, the results are dramatic enough to show significant trend.

While there are no real surprises, there are a few results that do raise an eyebrow and the graphic representation of the the results paints a dramatic picture of the generation gap in internet use.

Interestingly, the PEW survey reported that 66% of adults reported using the internet daily and my survey indicated about 76% of students use it daily. However, teens participated in twice the number of activities as the adults.

Under obvious results we found that adults searched for political information and financial information way more than teens and teens listened to music, watched videos, and played games way more than adults.

The results also showed that teens are more technically active through downloads, creation of online content and other activities.

Of course social networking what a mainstay of teen life with forty-two percent visiting regularly, as opposed to three percent of the adults.

What was interesting and puzzling at first glance was that adults used email twice as much as the teen, but the fact that teens used IM and text messages five times more than adults and blog more than ten times more seemed to explain that figure.

One other obvious result was chatroom participation. It was obvious that teens visited chatrooms more, but the percentage was somewhat lower than I would have expected. Reports I have read in the past showed about 50-60% of teens age 9-18 frequented chatrooms. In this survey the figure was only nineteen percent. This is particularly interesting because so far I have given the survey only to 7th and 8th grader and chatroom use drops off in high school. This seems to indicate that IM and text messaging is surplanting chat.

(The picture below show the survey results at a glance.)

It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the ability to communicate effeciently and effectively as a responsible netizen is a critical area of education and this is exactly where the WiredSafety online learning activities place their focus.

The URL will be officially published on June 21 at the First Annual Community and Social Networking Summit Westchester, NY, but in my next blog, I'll be pointing you to the URL.

You may not be able to get underway this school year, but you will have plenty of lead time to steal between trips to the beach or the park to get yourself up to speed so you can make your students Cyber Safe and Information Literate in 2006-2007.

Click on Image to Enlarge

The Over Reaction to Social Networking

2006-06-02T18:19:00.000-04:00

Podcast Version

Before I start this podcast, please give me a few minutes to bandage the serious rectangular grooves in my forehead made by the bricks on the wall I've been banging my head against, andto finish zipping up my asbestos suit.

OK, there it's done. This little rant is about social networking and the media coverage and the resulting reaction of the adult world in general and education world in particular.

At the risk of stating the obvious, social networking is a part of our culture. It has been around
since the first cavemen met on the plains. The only thing that has changed since then is the way that networking takes place. Eventually schools evolved, and though it wasn't specifically labeled as such, social networking was actually a part of the core curriculum along with the three R's.

As time progressed, the social networking curriculum in schools was less formal and took place through proper role modeling and in loco parentis. However it was still there in the form of extra-curricular activities, dances, clubs and so on. This evolution took place because we were teaching our children based on what we had been taught and what we knew.

Now, all of a sudden, students are networking in ways that are unfamiliar to us. We are no longer the experts in the mechanics of social networking. But rather than learning about these new ways of networking and how we can best guide our students through the online world, we become reactionary. We forget that we are still the experts in the ways of life and rather than learn and teach, we filter, block, and punish that which has been a part of our culture since the dawn of time.

Are we so stupid as to believe that this will stop that which we fear? Are we so blind that we think this will make our students safe or change what they are doing? Are we so irresponsible that we will renege on our responsibility to prepare students for networking life in the 21st century? If so, then SHAME ON US!!!

It's high time we get back in the game. We can start by recognizing that there is a great deal we can learn from our children. If we start treating them as collaborative partners in the new century we might get somewhere. They know that they know more about the technology than most of us. But they don't know what they don't know, namely the dangers and complexities of human interaction. Maybe if we are willing to learn from them about their world, they will listen to what we have to say about the rest of the world and the things they don't know.

In the weeks to come, I'll be talking more about how we can begin to teach our children about the complexities of social networking while helping them develop critical thinking and problem solving skills that will provide them with tools for life both online and off.

That's all for now. Take care and be safe.

Is MySpace a Train Wreck?

2006-03-29T09:03:00.000-05:00

(Podcast Version)

In a recent discussion on one of the major Ed Tech mailing lists, the discussion of the educational merits of MySpace came up. Someone said, “I wish someone would tell me what kind of educational uses there could possibly be for a train wreck like MySpace.

To me this comment as both surprising and expected. It was expected because the train wreck view of MySpace is common with people who don’t understand the concept of social networking and the importance of it to the Net generation. It was surprising in that previous lengthy discussions on this list and others have made it clear that MySpace is not the problem. It is the behavior of the users that is the problem.

Their behavior is to be expected. Before MySpace was in the news, millions of teen had already populated MySpace and were interacting there in a society they had created. For all effective purposes, there were no adults around to model, mentor, or supervise their activities.

If you don’t have a good picture of what transpires under those conditions, I suggest that you go back and reread Lord of the Flies. Attacking MySpace, is like finding Piggy and friends on the island and then destroying the island because of what it has done to the children.

We have found the lost children of MySpace and we as teachers have a unique opportunity to provide guidance to students in the proper use of blogging and social networking in their world. We can work with them in THEIR~world, a world that is important to them and if we do it well, what we teach will stick, because it is relevant and real.

Who should do it and what they should do is a matter of comfort with technology and curricular needs. We are all familiar with the technology gap that exists between our generation and the Net generation. The greater the gap between teacher and student, the less advisable might be to use MySpace for an educational activity, assuming you had a valid one.

Any valid use of technology in education is one which is curricular driven and can’t be done better or easier using some other vehicle. I would NEVER use MySpace to do something I could do elsewhere better. As far as what a valid activity might be, that’s difficult to say for someone else, because it depends on their curriculum, but for me it’s simple.

The problem at social networking sites is that kids are doing dumb things! They are behaving badly! They are engaging in risky behavior! They are being kids! Does it not make sense to use the social networking sites in a way that might modify that behavior in a positive way?

How about modeling alternative ways of social networking? I avoid the phrase “right ways”, because the way you network is to some extent dictated by the environment in which we are networking. In the case of social network sites, we have as much to learn about networking in a teen world and we have to teach.

Personally, I would start with general classroom discussion of the social networking problem. Begin talking to the kids. You might learn a lot. Then, under my supervision the students would set up accounts and register as being between 14 and 16 so that the automatic privacy restrictions kick in. I would put other safeguards and guidelines in place.

We now have a closed community of friends, our own mini-MySpace. The kids can teach me and I can teach them. What we do in that community is a question of curriculum… what class.., what need... whatever...

For example, if I were to write a book on web design and lay out, I would want examples of poor design. I could work for weeks to create examples of bad design, but why do that? With little or no effort students have created visual effects and web pages that curdle milk if it was placed in front of the screen.

Megan, one teacher on the list hit upon a use that goes directly to the heart of one of MySpaces biggest attraction, the ability to personalize their profiles with HTML. She’s a technology teacher who takes her classes to MySpace and shows them how to use Cascading Style Sheets and MySpaces page design environment to create orderly well constructed pages that allow students to express themselves in more powerful ways than before.

Jennifer’s students were complaining of people stealing poems and things they had created on MySpace. She turned that into a lesson on copyright and intellectual property.

So what else? Hmmm… How about having lessons on responsible blogging? Show them that blogging is more than telling about their likes and dislikes. It is a journalistic tool that can be used to change the world! Now let’s add peer support. Now let’s add collaboration and communication between other classes in the same school, or other classes in other schools. Now let’s add (your works here)… The possibilities may not be endless, but they certainly are numerous.

The kids need us, but we need them more. We need them because they are the future, but more importantly, we need them to teach us about their online world. We teachers must be as much of a student as we are teachers. We are partners in education and need to recognize and value what they can teach us. If not, they will not recognize or value what we try to teach them.

Art.

Till We Outnumber Them...

2006-03-21T12:46:00.000-05:00

[Podcast Version]

I'd like to start this podcast with a quote from a friend of mine. Ted Nellen is an Internet pioneer and has been teaching Cyber English in New York City since 1994. Ted says what he thinks and this particular quote is typical of his straight forward, thought provoking style.

"There is nothing wrong with MySpace or any other technology. The problem is in ourselves, the adults of this nation as we refuse to learn and pass it on. We have failed to see we are roadkill, unless we wake up and use our expertise to educate our children instead of punishing them by throwing them out of our schools and censor them and stifle them and filter them. They will not be stifled, filtered, censored and we don't get that."

You make not agree with all that Ted says here, but one thing is certain. We have about as much of a chance of stopping kids from using sites like MySpace, Xanga, and FaceBook as our parents had of keeping us from listening to Rock and Roll.

Wake up folks. These networking and blogging sites are a much a part of their life as R&R was and is of ours and theirs. The PEW institute has estimated that 1/3 of all teens have blogs, and what is a typical reaction to blogging in schools? It is to block them and not permit blogging to take place, even under the supervision of a teacher. In my mind, these are the decisions of ignorance and fear. Too many educators are ignorant of the transformational power of blogging. Too many administrators go into an automatic litigation protection mode. We just can't do that!

As Ted said, we as educators have to learn about the technology so that we can guide the student in responsible, productive, engaging educational uses of blogging. Information and lessons about blogging will soon be available at the WiredSafety site. We are still in the early stages of developing or educational material and what is up is still in draft form, but even in draft form I think it's important that people have access. If you want to take a peek at what we are doing, visit http://www.wiredsafety.org/wiredlearning

Arlo Guthrie tells a story of two rabbits who get chased into a hollow log by a bunch of dogs. While the dogs are jumping up and down, barking, and making a lot of noise, the mother rabbit looks at the father rabbit and say, "Poppa, it doesn't look like we are going to get out of this one."

To this, poppa replies, "Don't worry. We'll just stay here until we outnumber them!'

While educators and parents are barking, jumping up and down and making noise, the teens are populating the blogsphere. The are outnumbering us and are in danger of overrunning us. We have to act appropriately and responsibly. Educators must learn, supervise, teach responsible use and join the blogging population. Parents must learn, supervise and be active parents.

Until next time, this is Art Wolinsky helping to make you Cyber Safe and Information Literate.

Trouble in Three Little Words

2006-03-12T09:02:00.000-05:00

(Podcast Version)

I remember the good old days when I was in the classroom. It was around 2 or 3 BC (Before Consulting around 1996). I would stand in front of a class of students in my Internet Basics class and say, "Here are the keys to my car and my house. Here is my wallet with all my money and credit cards. I would give you any of these before I give you my password. With my keys and wallet, you have my money in your possession. With my password, you have my life."

That's how I started my discussion of passwords with my students. They looked at me like I was crazy, because they saw no problem with that and many of them shared their passwords with friends and family, an unwise and easily dangerous habit.

I would continue, "I can wreck your life with three words." The students then begin guessing unsuccessfully what they might be. Eventually I say, "You are dead."

That remark is greeted with more strange looks that seem to confirm their opinion of my sanity until I explained that if I had someone's password and used it to send those three words to the President of the United States, the Secret Service would be at their door in very short order.

The discussion went on from there to discuss how people are tracked down on the Internet and that it is very difficult to be anonymous.

Today, password protection can literally be a matter of life and death. Identity theft is a serious problem and when it takes place in a cyberbullying situation, it can be devastating to the point of suicide.

Oh, there is an interesting twist to the "Your are dead" story. I had given that lesson on a Friday. When I came to school on Monday, my boss called me to his office and said, "Art, we have a problem."

My obvious reply was, "What is it?"

His answer was one short sentence, "We're getting a visit from the Secret Service."

My immediate thought was that I knew where that had come from and I told him of my lesson. He looked less than pleased. As things turned out, it was not my lesson or even one of my students who had caused the problem. A student had accessed the White House website and left a message there threatening the President, using another student's name.

They had traced the IP back to our school and in short order we were able to determine who had actually sent the message. Problems over a girl had precipitated the message, but girl problems were the least of his problems now. While the Secret Service took no action, there as a suspension from school and significant impact on the student's college plans.

From that day on, my keys and wallet story had a new conclusion, but the message remains the same... Share your password with no one!

Cyber Safety, Information Literacy, Problem Solving, and Einstein

2006-02-11T14:13:00.000-05:00

(Podcast Version)

Hi Folks. This is Art Wolinsky with another episode of 3DWiredSafety.

My goal as Educational Technology Director of WiredSafety is to help make students cyber safe and information liteate. To that end, I'm working on a series of lessons that will help teachers make students safe within the context of teaching information literacy and critical thinking.

Right now I am finishing up an activity that has students tracking down a hacker who has stolen three unreleased movies from the a major studio's computers. When they are done, they will have learned some important problem solving skills. They will learn how to organize pieces of seeming unrelated bits of information to form and complete and complex picture. They will understand the concept of proof and use it while learning three different problem solving techniques. They will do detective work that is well beyond what you or they might expect and when it's over they will come to the realization that cyber predators use these same techniques to piece together seemingly innocent pieces of information to piece together a picture of someone they are grooming and planning to take advantage of.

Students will actually be working with an adaptaion of Einstein's famous puzzle. When he originally created it, he estimated that only 2% of the world's population would be able to solve it. The lesson package will contain everything the teacher needs to help students solve the problem and learn some very critical problem solving skills and citical thinking concept.

I've presented this lesson at education conferences and workshops around the country with great success and it classrooms from grade three on up through seniors in high school. A big part of that success is the fact that I have taken Einstein's text and turned it into a visual problem to suit today's generation of visual learners.

The core of the package will be three Flash presentations. The first is the teacher lesson plan that includes an overview, objectives, procedures, lists material, the ALA Information Literacy Standards being addressed, and evaluation suggestions. This and the other two Flash presentations will also be available as a PowerPoint and in Word format. The second presentation is the student introduction and instructions. The third is the step by step solution.

Also included in the package, will be a printable matrix and puzzle pieces for students to solve the puzzle visually, a printable snapshot of the completed matrix as a first level answer key for the teacher, and for schools that have Inspiration software, there will be an Inspiration puzzle template they can use to do the activity on computers.

You can watch this blog or podcast for information about where you can get this material, or if you want to be notified when it is avaialable, just drop me a line at awolinsky@3dwriting.com.

Till next time, this is Art Wolinsky for WiredSafety helping to make your kids cybersafe and information literate.

Parry's Blog

2006-02-06T11:56:00.000-05:00

Podcast Version

Hi folks,

Parry Aftab, Executive director of WiredSafety has just started podcasting. Her blog has been around for quite a while. You can visit it at http://parryaftab.blogspot.com/ We hope to set her podcast up with the iTunes store tomorrow so those of you with iPods can subscribe for automatic downloads. In the meantime, you can listen to her very first podcast for teens about Safety on Myspace.com before it goes live in iTunes.

Take care,
Art

Welcome to 3DWiredSafety

2006-02-03T17:28:00.000-05:00

(Podcast Version)

Hi. I'm Art Wolinsky, the OEO of 3DWriting, inc. and the Educational Technology Director of WiredSafety.org.

I worked in the K-12 classroom for 30 years before moving on to my second life time as a Technology Infusion Specialist, consulting with schools to help develop Information and Technology literate students.

In 1996, I met Parry Aftab the Executive Director of WiredSafety.org and added cyber safety as another dimension to my mission.

In this blog I hope to be able to provide readers with some lessons, thoughts, stories and streams of consciousness (or semi-consciousness) that will help them make their students or children information literate and cyber safe.

Oh, in case you were wondering what an OEO is, it's an Only Executive Officer.