Internet Safety

I had a lot of fun researching things on internet safety for this assignment. I feel more prepared to teach my students and future children about how to be safe on the internet. For the reading activity I read the talk "Finding and Sharing the Gospel Online" by Michelle Stocking in the October 2009 Ensign. She talks about the importance of using the internet to spread the Gospel message. The end of the article has some good tips on internet safety in a section called "Better Blogging." The most important thing I learned from the article is to avoid specifics in blogs and be discriminating about what pictures to post online. This will influence me as a teacher and parent because I can help my students and children be more aware about internet safety especially when blogging. Finally, I can have a positive influence on family and friends by making them aware of safer ways to be on the internet, blog, and network.

For the video portion I watched part of the PBS Frontline Documentary on how growing up online influences today's youth. I also watched some news reports on how teens are influenced by the internet, including one on the top five ways teens jeopardize their identities online. Finally, I watched some movies about how to be safe on facebook.

I learned a lot about the dangers children face online from predators and cyber bullying that I wasn't fully aware of before. It makes me more aware of things I can do as a teacher and parent to keep my students and children safe while allowing them to access the valuable resources that can be found on the internet. I can go to our class website and click on the video links to find more information about teaching internet safety, I can check my class members' blogs, or I can google internet safety on teachertube. I'm committed to empowering my students by teaching them about internet safety so they can safely navigate the web. I'm likely to face internet safety issues like difficulties associated with forming a class blog and keeping students safe. I'll address this by making the blog private and teaching my students what not to share on their profiles (like full name, birthday, age, address, schedules, etc.). Finally, I can leverage the power of the internet and enable my students to learn in a safe way by first informing them about the dangers of the internet and precautions they can take to be safe online.

For the doing part I talked with a mother in her fifties who has a teenaged boy who just got a facebook. She was already aware of internet safety issues and very good and helping her son be safe on the internet while still being able to network with his friends. Her son doesn't have any personal information on his facebook like full birthday, location, phone number, or pictures that could help someone track him down. Also, she has the password to his account so she can monitor what he does online and he can only be online if she is in the same room because she has the password to log into the computer. She's already doing a great job on keeping her son safe! Some things I shared with her were the importance of not posting schedules or detailed statuses on facebook, having private blogs, not posting age or location, and monitoring children's internet usage. She was already doing a lot of great things so there wasn't a ton I could share with her but I was able to discuss the importance of internet safety with her and learn some tips she has developed over time that have helped keep her kids safe online.