Internet Safety

This article was called: Resources Abound for Setting Up Internet Safety Programs
By: Jennifer Hanson

I was very excited to read this article about internet safety because we were just talking to Professor O’Connor about it in class.

This article was mainly different ways to teach internet safety to kids. There were some very good ideas such as: call up local law enforcement, use parent organizations, ask high school leadership programs, or work with district resources.

Calling up your local law enforcement is helpful because they may be willing to send out an officer to talk to your class or school. They probably have someone specially trained to speak about Internet safety for students. “Having law enforcement and teachers present together reminds students of the importance of staying safe online.” This would also be a great opportunity to talk to the students about civil service jobs like police officers and fireman.

Using parental organizations would defiantly come in handy because parents can be trained to present to other parents in the community. Creating a group of trained parents promotes community involvement and classroom involvement.

Asking high school Leadership programs to help out is a good idea because it gives the high school kids a chance to interact with elementary and middle schools aged children. They can act as a teacher and spokesperson for responsible Internet behavior. This also gives them a great experience as a role model for kids.

Creating partnerships with your district departments makes sure the message to students happens frequently and in a variety of different contexts. This also gives your whole district a sense of unity and relief to know that all of their kids know how to handle any problems that may occur. This may help to ease up on the strict rules the district implements on what sites kids can visit.

I would defiantly use some of these resources in my classroom. The article was written to show the steps on how to loosen the hold the district has over the internet in the school but I think that teaching your students internet safety is important no matter what. Just because the district restricts certain websites at school does not mean that the kids can not get to these sights at home. Teaching internet safety would help your children to be safe wherever they are. I really like the idea of having a police officer come to my classroom to talk. This would be such a cool experience for my kids. They would learn about internet safety and about being a police officer. Then I would have them write about what they learned, what they liked the best, and what they might want to be when they grow up.