CSD Hosts Class to Help Parents Keep Kids Safe Online
Decatur Metro | March 19, 2010Heather writes in with details about an April 1st “Internet Safety Event” at Decatur High School…
Decatur High School Theater, Thursday, April 1st, 6:30-7:30 p.m., Free childcare- registration info below!
The City Schools of Decatur, in partnership with the Decatur Children and Youth Services, invite all parents and community members to attend a program entitled “Internet Safety and Social Networking in the Digital Age” at Decatur High School on Thursday, April 1st, at 6:30 pm. Hoke Wilcox, Ed.S., an Instructional Technology Specialist from the Educational Technology Center at Kennesaw University, will be our presenter for the evening.
Every parent who attends will receive a book provided by the federal government called: Net Cetera: Chatting With Kids About Being Online. The book gives adults practical tips to help kids navigate the online world.
At the conclusion of the presentation, the City Schools of Decatur media/instructional technology specialists will be at kiosks sharing with parents the online resources our staff and students use daily. We have subscribed to services such as NetTrekker, World Book Online, and others providing a safe, efficient, reliable way to complete online research. Our subscriptions are available to families at home through use of passwords provided by our schools.
We hope you will join us for this adults-only event! Free childcare for school-aged children will be provided by Decatur Children and Youth Services.
To reserve a space for childcare, please RSVP to Heather Borowski, Instructional Technology Coordinator for City Schools of Decatur, at hborowski@csdecatur.net or 404-370-3848 ext. 17.
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Oh boy, more scary propaganda about how the internet is full of pedophiles!
On a more serious note, making this an “adults-only” event seems like a bad idea. But I might be reading into it just a bit too much.
A similar seminar was held one or two years ago and it was great. It had nothing to do with pedophiles and everything to do with what teens are really doing on the Internet right now. What I got out of it was that you should have free access to any social media to which your chiildren belong. Also made the point that clever teens can outwit any software or other technology meant to safeguard them. Safest intervention is to have the only online access be at home in the middle of a common area like the family room. No laptops in the bedroom. But be aware that school and friends’ computers will still be accessible.
The reason this is adult only is so that adults can feel free to ask dumb questions that they may not ask if kids are around, e.g. “What the heck IS My Space?” and “What does it mean if my child does Alt Tab on his laptop every time I come near?”
I imagine that some youngsters would toss up words like “invasion of privacy” and “don’t you trust me” or “I’m not an idiot” or “I’m not like one of those kids.” I wonder if…as more parents become more in tune with, more knowledgeable about their children’s net-surfing habits, if the kids won’t revert back to old school forms of communication and expression.
A spiral bound notebook as a journal tucked away between the bookcase and the guitar case, perhaps? (written in code or deceptively simple English where true meanings are hidden in plain sight). Or, if a parent allows the child to have a laptop in the room as long as xyz criteria are met, the child could very well fill the machine not with hot-n-bothered-lingo, but with other equally disconcerting material, which the child might explain away as “research for a school project.”
Apologies for an imagination running away with me.
Ah, thanks for clearing that up!