Teaching younger students internet safety is very important
as they begin to navigate the world wide web. We have been talking about
digital citizenship since school began and this morning we spent some time
discussing how to protect ourselves online. According to Mary Beth Hertz
published on Edutopia, “With children spending time online at younger and
younger ages, it is vital to teach young children how to protect themselves
online.” They get the Stranger Danger
message about how to handle strangers they might face but it is crucial to
transfer this knowledge to online safety. There are three things to consider
when talking about internet safety with young children. First, students’ understanding
that the virtual environment when thinking about strangers does not transfer
automatically and needs to be explicitly taught. Second not all strangers
online are dangerous and often we can collaborate with experts (like Kevin
Carroll tomorrow) through social media. Lastly, students need strategies for
handling situations in the online environment.
We talked about what a stranger was and how not all
strangers are bad people. I gave the example of the young man who held the door
open for me at Dunkin Donuts this morning (chivalry is not dead). We followed
up with a discussion of things we would not tell a stranger (address, full
name, phone number, etc.) versus things it is okay to tell a stranger (any kind
of information that will not put them in harm’s way). This led into talking
about strangers online (people we might play games with or Tweet with). We
watched a BrainPOP video on online safety and held a follow up discussion.
Great resources for you to follow up with at home are:
Common Sense Media (I used this to explain to my sister why The
Good Dinosaur was rated PG rather than G)
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