Internet Safety

For this assignment I watched the Frontline video "Growing Up Online." Here is a link to the video Frontline Video

There were many things I learned from this video. I learned that adolescents spend SO much time online and adults are not as involved as they should be. As a parent, I am going to be more involved in my child's life and what my child sees and does online. As a teacher, I will include necessary technologies as they are pertinent to assignments and lessons, but I will not provide the students access to sites that are potentially dangerous and inappropriate. I will help my brothers and sisters-in-law make the internet a safe place for my nieces and nephews; I will also discuss with my friends ways in which we can protect ourselves and our future children from the harmful affects of the internet. I think that when it comes to cyberbullying, it is a little difficult to try and regulate what happens especially if the youth does not want to talk about their lives. I still believe if you begin with open lines of communication from the start then the youth will be more likely to discuss things with adults; we also must keep an open mind and try not to be judgmental when students and adolescents come to talk to us. I think the most helpful way of preventing cyberbullying is educating the youth on how to protect themselves. They are ultimately the ones that can completely have control over the situation. I know there are some resources online to help prevent cyberbullying; the church has articles and helpful tools in addressing them. There are also seminars and classes that parents and teachers can attend to be better informed on how to help; some of these classes can be for students as well since they are the ones that come in contact with bullying online more often. As a teacher, if I want to show a youtube video, sometimes there can be advertisements or inappropriate related videos that show up on the sides; I can use the quiettube website to help protect my students. I can also have a strict control set up on the computers so they can only access specific educational websites. I can monitor their computer access to make sure that the usage of the computers are strictly for assignments. I think I can make the internet a safer place for my students by showing them websites that are interesting and entertaining yet educational and useful. They will be broadening their website library and may be less likely to get bored and search or access websites that are unsafe.