Yik Yak app concerns P.E.I. high school - A smartphone app that allows users to post anonymous comments that only other users in close proximity can see is gaining popularity among students, but it has officials at P.E.I.'s largest high school concerned. "As each day goes by, more and more students seem to be getting affected by this site," said Gordie Cox, a guidance counsellor at Colonel Gray high school. Students told CBC News that Yik Yak started to become popular in early December and has led to trash-talking because users are anonymous. Colonel Gray students say Yik Yak has been growing in popularity since early December. (CBC) Const. "There are students that aren't attending school because of it. Geo-fencing offered In an email to CBC News, Yik Yak said, "We recognize that with any social app or network, there is the likelihood for misuse from a small group of users, so we have put specific algorithms in place and continue to improve our monitoring tools to prevent this from happening." 'Answer is education'
BEFORE You Post: THINK Probably the most pinned posts and images on this blog are those that include the Before you Speak: THINK posters. I created the first one back in 2011 here and then have updated it several times here and here and here. As I prepared to send out some resources to teachers in our district regarding Digital Citizenship Week next week, I decided it was time for another update! First up, just the original poster with new icons and fonts: Next, same info but a twist on the layout. Next, two totally different layouts: And finally a new elementary looking version: I also made the first version into a bookmark! I think they would be a great reminder to print and hand out to students! You can print out free PDF or JPG copies HERE.
Why Schools Need to Teach Technology, Not Ban It Image courtesy @LBPSB During my last seven years as a teacher and consultant, I have borne witness to the technological digital shift in education. When I began my education career in 2005 at the tender age of 23, I had little idea what I was about to face. I was given an unheard of mixture of classes and was thrown to the sharks wearing my new heels and best “teacher” clothes. NaÏve and idealistic, nothing had prepared me for the challenges and incredible joys I would face in the classroom. Looking back to when I began teaching, I can now appreciate what was developing. By my second year of teaching I had become the media teacher (along with a long list of other subjects) and was introduced (by a student of course) to Facebook, founded only a few years before. As an educator or parent it is easy to forget how quickly things changed in those few years. Where do we go from here? Block, filter, take away, confiscate. The problem with this approach is that it does not work. Do we educate?
Educators | Think Before You Link Today’s fast-paced world provides students with an increasing number of digital tools at their fingertips – both in school and at home. As a teacher, it’s important to make digital safety a priority in your classroom and ensure that your students know how to act safely, responsibly, and thoughtfully online. The Intel® Security Digital Safety Program gives you the resources you need to educate your students how to make smart and secure decisions online. Using the interactive curriculum resources below, you and your students will gain critical information on cybersafety, cybersecurity, and cyberethics. Cybersafety Help your students learn the basics of digital safety so they can make the right decisions when it comes to staying safe online. Cybersecurity It’s important to be cybersecure in order to keep devices and personal information safe from today’s online threats.
Why Teens Are Impulsive, Addiction-Prone And Should Protect Their Brains iStock By NPR Staff Teens can’t control impulses and make rapid, smart decisions like adults can — but why? Research into how the human brain develops helps explain. In a teenager, the frontal lobe of the brain, which controls decision-making, is built but not fully insulated — so signals move slowly. “Teenagers are not as readily able to access their frontal lobe to say, ‘Oh, I better not do this,’ ” Dr. Jensen, who’s a neuroscientist and was a single mother of two boys who are now in their 20s, wrote The Teenage Brain to explore the science of how the brain grows — and why teenagers can be especially impulsive, moody and not very good at responsible decision-making. “We have a natural insulation … called myelin,” she says. This insulation process starts in the back of the brain and heads toward the front. “The last place to be connected — to be fully myelinated — is the front of your brain,” Jensen says. Interview Highlights On why teenagers are more prone to addiction Copyright 2015 NPR.
8 Steps for Students to Remove Their Digital Footprints September, 2014 One of the essential parts of the digital citizenship I have been long talking about in this blog is about digital footprints. Students need to know that whatever they do or create online leaves behind a trail or digital breadcrumbs that others can trace. This "others" can be anyone from prospective employers, to college admission boards, anything you do online should be vetted by a critical lens and if "you don't want your parents to know about it then better not do it". One of the simplest and effective ways to track your digital footprints is through Googling yourself. Step 1 Deactivate primary accounts ( e.g. Source of the visual Who Is Hosting This
Online Safety Redefined: The 3 Key Elements | Stephen Balkam Online safety has come of age. It is 21 years since "Child Safety on the Information Highway" was first published by journalist and online safety expert, Larry Magid. A year later, after the release of the notorious Rimm Study and the Time Magazine cover article on porn on the Internet, the U.S. Senate Judiciary held Congress' first ever hearing on the subject. In 1996, my own organization launched what would become the world's leading content labeling system for websites, linked to filters that parents could use to control what their kids could see on the Internet. Since then we've had what one observer called a "technopanic" over online predators, which reached its apotheosis (or nadir) in NBC Dateline's To Catch a Predator. Kids now create the content we used to try and keep them away from and they do it with immensely powerful devices they carry around with them in their pockets. So it behooves us to take a step back and ask ourselves what we mean by online safety in 2015. 1. 2. 3.
NetSafe Utah Man Regrets Posting Video on Facebook of Paris Cop's Killing PARIS — When Ahmed Coulibaly laid siege to a kosher supermarket in Paris last week, the bloody assault which left four hostages dead came as a shock — but not a surprise — to many Jews in France. The number of French Jews emigrating to Israel has jumped dramatically in recent years thanks to an uptick in perceived anti-Semitism, according to The Jewish Agency. The agency — a nonprofit which facilitates emigration to Israel, which is known as "aliyah" — said 7,000 people moved from France last year — double the 2013 total. "A lot of people thought that it was only a matter of time for something like this to happen," agency spokesman Avi Mayer told NBC News. He said that calls coming in to the agency's global service center have "literally doubled" since Coulibaly's hostage-taking and rampage in the kosher supermarket. France's Jewish community is the largest in Europe and the third-largest in the world — after Israel and the United States — with some 500,000 Jews. Courtesy of Lyon Menahem
Teach Them Kindness Posted by Shelly Terrell on Sunday, December 21st 2014 Included in the Digital Ideas Advent Calendar with a new idea each day! Unexpected kindness is the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agent of human change. – Bob Kerrey Teaching citizenship isn’t an additional part of the curriculum. A good lesson plan or project will get students to learn how to be kind, generous, problem-solving, caring, compassionate, imaginative, creative, emphatic, and/or helpful while also getting them to learn. The goal is to get students to take what they are learning and use the knowledge and skills to somehow improve their current lives or improve the lives of others. Ideas and Activities The slideshow below provides students ideas on how to be kind in small quick ways. Created with Haiku Deck, the free presentation app for iPad Make an advent calendar in which everyday you suggest a small way for your students to be kind. Other Resources Challenge:
Social Media at School: Teaching Safety on the Virtual Playground | Edutopia These days, social media gets a pretty bad rap. It seems like every other day there is a celebrity apology or a story about a teen who commits suicide due to cyberbullying. It's true, social media can breed some pretty awful stuff. Acceptable Use Our school is unique in Philadelphia in that it's one of the few public schools with a 1:1 program that allows students to take devices home. Let's face it -- teenagers are on social media in school and out of school, even if their parents have told them they can't be, and even if the school has rules about being on phones during school hours. In my class, we start the year with the book, lol. . .OMG by Matt Ivester. Always Learning It is through these discussions that I learn about how students use social media, what their experiences have been, and what their beliefs are. Schools and teachers don't have to be afraid of social media if they take the time to teach kids how to play on this virtual playground responsibly, ethically, and safely.