Internet Safety @ HomeHS PTA Presentation – 23 November 2006

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?

Today’s 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

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.

Digital Natives

Anyone born after 1985 is a digital native.

Personal computers are already 10 years old.

In Their Lifetimes

1990 - Tim Berners-Lee writes World Wide Web program

1990

1996 - Palm pilots go on the market… computing becomes mobile

1999 - Sean Fanning, creates Napster… suddenly everyone is sharing

2002 - the iPod is unveiled

2006

And now…

1997-2005 has brought us: Blogs Wikis YouTube Social networking

Do you know what these are? Your children do.

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?

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

Is it safe out there?

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

What can you do to keep them safe? Talk with them

Be open about what concerns you and what types of content you don’t 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

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?

Stronger Measures

Filter Software “Content Provider” – endorsed by Disney

and reviewed highly by Top Ten reviews: US$40 per year

K9 Web Protection from Blue Coat, supplier to Fortune 500 companies so for homes it’s Free!

Keep in mind that filter software is not perfect

From “Do You Know Where Your Kids are Clicking”, by Alan Cohen, PC Magazine, July 2006.

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

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!

Questions?