Internet Safety in and out of the Classroom

I came across an article on internet safety and thought it was worthy of sharing.   This is a great resource to peruse about internet safety and how to keep your student safe at home.  The article highlights specifics about monitoring your students use and ways you can support them at home.  

Before delving into what more you need to be doing let me share with you how your child is being protected right now as they participate in online school.  School devices have protections set up by your district's IT department to prevent access to certain web sites.  While this is not as strict as the firewalls set up on school campuses they do provide an extra layer of security.  Other security features that are being used by many teachers are filters around hyperlinks.  These filters isolate the video the teacher wants to share so students are not put into the Youtube pipeline that will keep playing videos for them.  The most popular these days are Safesharetv and Viewpure.   

So what do you need to worry about?  

1. RESEARCH: If your student needs to do research I often suggest they use their school's library web page to access databases and articles that are already filtered for their veracity.  We all know that the internet is filled with blogs and opinion pieces that are not vetted or verified for truth.   If your student needs a more general browser for research I have used Findingdulcinea to provide well balanced access to information.   

2.  PHOTOS:  Often times kids want additional pictures for their presentations.  In class we use a website called aptly, photos for class.  They use age appropriate images and have automatic citations built in.  

3.  TIME:  Online school means your student's screen time is significantly over what is recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics.   The AAP's recommendations have increased from 4 hours a week to 7 hours a week over the last four years.  This year they are encouraging parents to limit their students access and use knowing that online school is requiring students spend more than double what is recommended each week.  Feel free to peruse their new guidelines here. 

Going forward: 

A little bit of effort will really help.  Here are four things you can do.  

* Limit your student's usage.

* Keep your students in sight so you can see what they are doing on their devices

* Check their devices after their screen time is up to see what apps they were using and to peruse their browser history  

* Have regular and open conversations about internet safety