Activity 3.3 Internet Safety

Top ten Internet safety issues:
1.  Internet predators
2.  accessing inappropriate content
3.  Viruses
4.  Botnets (phishing scams)
5.  Privacy/posting personal information
6.  Advertising scams
7.  cyber bullying 
8.  Social media
9.  Identity theft
10.  False information

Social technologies can be helpful to allow both students and teachers to connect with other individuals to gain insight into other areas or to connect with experts in other areas.  The harm can come when people connect with strangers or allow personal information to be public.

As a general rule, I think that teachers should be able to use their own discretion when it comes to "friending" parents on social media sites.  I do believe that most often it is not a good idea.  If a parent becomes upset with the school or the teacher it could become awkward at the least and falsely incriminating at the very worst.

Unless there is gross negligence involved, I don't think that teachers should be held responsible for students accessing inappropriate content.  There should be guidelines that the teacher goes over before the class begins Internet work so that in the case of accidental access of inappropriate content the student knows that he or she should inform the teacher right away.  If this happens, the teacher should make a phone call to the parents and explain the situation.

All districts generally have fairly strong filters in place, but even these can't catch everything.  The teacher should spend time with the class at the beginning of the project or activity going through Internet safety rules with the class.  It would be helpful if the school had someone knowledgable in Internet safety gives some guidelines to teachers which could be presented to a class.  Even some teachers are not aware of the pitfalls of Internet usage.
I learned that hard way that a "free search" for students is not a good idea.  The teacher should give the students search terms ahead of time, terms which he or she has already searched and checked, or a list of sites.  There are also kid-friendly search engines which are very helpful.

I think that the trick, if there is one, to find what you are looking for the first time is to be just specific enough.  There is such a thing as being too specific, however, depending on the topic.  Entering search terms in the correct order can make a difference too.