Thursday, September 9, 2010

Come on! It's common sense!

One reoccurring theme that seems to have popped up a lot while reading safety tips about children's' internet use is parent education. Quite a few people have posted their concerns that parents are not well informed enough about either the dangers of unsupervised/restricted internet use or what their children are viewing. That being said, I suppose the place to start in regards to ensure safe blogging for students would be parental as well as student education. Of great concern seems to be the amount of information some children provide when blogging or using a social network site. Students should be made aware of the dangers that exist when divulging too much information about themselves freely- one site I recently visited simply asked parents to tell their children to leave some lines blank when asked to divulge certain information. Common sense tips like those can go a long way, especially to younger kids who do not stop to consider possible dangers.
Another simple tip I had come across is to utilize the privacy settings on blogs and social networking sites. Such settings are accessible for a reason and students/children should be made aware of their uses as well as instructed on how to limit sharing their information only to those they know.
Summing up a lot of what I came across is parent education as well as student education as well as the use of common sense. It's important to explicitly instruct students as well as parents on the obvious ways to protect students to ensure that safety precautions are being taken.

2 comments:

  1. I agree with you about parent monitoring. A lot of parents don't really know about their kids interaction with the internet. They would probably be really surprised with what they would find out too! Parents should really regulate and monitor what their kids are doing on the internet. Nice post!

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  2. I'm glad that you mentioned parental involvement. I think that some parents would be very appreciative of some specific ideas about what their children are being asked to do in school and what school work they may be asked to do at home.

    Dr. Burgos

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