Focus on Online Safety

Although October was officially designated as "Online Safety Month," I encourage online safety at all times. I am a strong proponent of teaching students about online safety or "digital citizenship" both in school and out. Our students live in a generation that is continuously exposed to the digital world. In our Middle School Technology Ed classes, 5th and 6th grade spend two weeks focusing on various areas related to online safety. These topics include: recognizing email scams; virus awareness and security; effective Internet searching; website evaluation, cyberbullying, IM, chat and social network safety.

In a world of MySpace, Facebook and Twitter, it is important that educators and parents make it a priority to teach students how to properly interact online and so they will learn how to develop good online habits.

Here are some helpful websites for parents to help keep our students safe online at home:
staysafeonline.org
Although you may not be ready for your child to hop on to Facebook, this site offers some handy tips describing how to customize Friends list and use privacy settings:
http://www.helpdesk.ilstu.edu/kb/index.phtml?kbid=1556