Parent Talk on December 11, 2014 Internet Safety for Grades JK-4

1. Effective
Cyber-Parenting
@ LS
RBS
December, 2014

2. Who’s in Charge of
Child Computer Activity?
• Teachers
– Choose age-appropriate, academic uses of tech at
school to help children learn now & also prepare them
with skills for future
• Parents
– Stay in touch with kids, set boundaries, and
communicate expectations
• Teachers & Parents
– Prepare students to make good, healthy decisions
(ethical, values-based)
– Keep children safe while they’re learning to be
responsible and independent

3. Safety Instruction at School
• Reading and discussion of Appropriate Use Policy.
– Focus on protecting personal identity, not sharing too
much personal info: name, address, phone number
– No typing of URLs at school, No Google
– Search in closed databases (encyclopedias)
– Block ads
• Use of internet safety games and activities: Carnegie
Cadets, NetSmartz Kids, Disney’s SurfSwell Island
• Practice Netiquette – guidelines for appropriate online
communication and commenting, especially among
peers

4. Safety Measures at School
• Adult supervision in room – frequent visual check
• Desktops in use in lab and early childhood rooms
• Laptops on tables, not on laps
• Web filters – firewall and Netsweeper
• Limited use of email in second half of fourth grade
- Spam Filter
• Monitoring software available (but seldom used)
• “Walled garden” – on-going attention to permissions
and eye on public nature of any activity outside walls

5. Online Activities at School
with a Social Component
• JK/SK – listen to other students through class
VoiceThreads
• 1st – student-student interaction (Shidonni)
• 2nd – Individual VoiceThread accounts include
commenting, teacher-led
collaboration/communication with other school,
outside experts. ZooBurst, Animation software
accounts
• 3rd- Google Apps for Education, especially Drive
and Sites
• 4th – Introduction of email accounts

6. Examples of Home Use
w/ Entertainment / Social Aspect
• Online Games - Webkinz, Poptropica, Club
Penguin, ToonTown, Minecraft
• Google searches, especially image searches
• YouTube searches
• FaceTime – video, text messaging

7. Risk Assessment
• Shaping the amount of use, time, location and on what device may
be a more challenging job for the parent than the teacher.
• Where are students most likely to run into problems?
• Stranger Danger
• Accidental exposure to graphic material, mature content, heavily
biased articles
• Intentional exposure to inappropriate content
• Peer criticism & attack, hurt feelings
• Over-sharing in the moment, poor commenting that can’t be taken
back, loss of privacy
• Backlash, consequences at home, school

8. Safety Challenges At Home
• In general while at home…
• Children have more freedom with devices
• Children have more portable devices and
more freedom to use them in unsupervised
areas and times
• Children are curious and may be eager to
explore exactly what is forbidden at school

9. Safety Measures for Home
• Communicate rules & values
• Set limits
• Observe children’s computer use
• Parent as admin on machines/devices, not
child
• Parent as account holder in App Store, iTunes,
etc.

10. Software Tools
• Use Built-in Parental Controls
– For Mac, Windows, portable devices
• Filter your network
– http://www.opendns.com/
• Block Advertising
– http://adblockplus.org/en/
• Additional filtering/blocking/monitoring/control software
should be a second line of defense (NetNanny)

11. Parental Controls
Mac OS

12. Parent-Child Conversation
• Safety Pledge / Promise
• Internet safety should be an ongoing conversation at home: Discuss
your values!
• Teach and discuss with your child appropriate social skills for online
communication
• All activities under open and direct supervision. Desktop computer
in a public place. Mobile devices used in agreed-upon areas at
acceptable times
• Limit expectations of online privacy with your child. Child shares
usernames and passwords with parents. Check history.

13. Resources for Parents
• commonsense.org
– https://www.commonsensemedia.org/privacy-and-
internet-safety
• onguardonline.gov
– http://www.onguardonline.gov/articles/pdf-0001-
netcetera.pdf
• safekids.com
– http://www.safekids.com/contract_kid/