Internet Safety @ Home

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Internet Safety _at_ Home

• HS PTA Presentation 23 November 2006

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The Essential Question

• How do we the digital immigrants understand,
  participate in, and monitor the world of our
  digital native children to ensure their safety?

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Todays Agenda

• Your children are Digital Natives - what does
  that mean?
• What are your children doing on the internet?
• Is it safe out there?
• What can you do to keep your child safe?
• Questions (hopefully) Answers

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Your children are wired differently

• The Visual cortex in the brain of the kids today
  is 15 larger than of kids 10 years ago. They
  process information differently. They are DIGITAL
  NATIVES.

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Digital Natives

• Anyone born after 1985 is a digital native.

Personal computers are already 10 years old.
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In Their Lifetimes
1999 - Sean Fanning, creates Napster suddenly
everyone is sharing
1990 - Tim Berners-Lee writes World Wide Web
program
1990
2006
1996 - Palm pilots go on the market computing
becomes mobile
2002 - the iPod is unveiled
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And now

• 1997-2005 has brought us
• Blogs
• Wikis
• YouTube
• Social networking
• Do you know what these are?
• Your children do.

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Digital Natives

• Your children are not us.
• The average college graduate now
• Has spent less than 5,000 hours reading
• Has spent more than 10,000 hours playing video
  games
• Has spent 20,000 hours watching T.V.
• E-mail is old-technology to them
• How does knowing this impact what we do?

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What are your children doing?

• School work
• Word processing, spreadsheets, presentations,
  simulations
• Research
• Socializing
• MySpace social networking
• Sharing files (torrents) music, videos
• Meeting people
• Dating
• Downloading
• Gaming
• Virtual worlds
• Passing time
• Online Gambling
• Exploring Interests/Questions
• Appropriate and inappropriate content

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Is it safe out there?

• What to look out for
• Pornography
• Online Predators
• Cyber-bullying
• Online Gambling

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What can you do to keep them safe?

• Talk with them
• Be open about what concerns you and what types of
  content you dont want them viewing
• Ask them what they do when they are online
• Speak to them about what kind of information they
  and others share online
• Establish some rules or guidelines about time
  and/or what they do

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What can you do to keep them safe?

• Control access
• Where is the computer?
• How much time are they allowed?
• Can you disconnect them, if necessary?

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Stronger Measures

• Filter Software
• Content Provider endorsed by Disney and
  reviewed highly by Top Ten reviews US40 per
  year
• K9 Web Protection from Blue Coat, supplier to
  Fortune 500 companies so for homes its Free!
• Keep in mind that filter software is not perfect

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From Do You Know Where Your Kids are Clicking,
by Alan Cohen, PC Magazine, July 2006.
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Some other priorities

• The real world is worth participating in too
• Remind your children about being a human being
  balancing their lives
• The electronic world can be pretty consuming
• Balance requires that they sleep, eat, exercise
  and leave their rooms to thrive

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And finally

• Remember that soon enough they will be on their
  own
• Work with them to become smart, responsible, safe
  web participants
• EVERYTHING will change even more in the coming
  years!

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Questions?