Book Wesley Fryer for a presentation or workshop (either face-to-face or over video) by visiting his contact page on www.wesfryer.com/contact. Presentation / workshop handout links are available on wiki.wesfryer.com.
The recently released video, “RE: Cry of the Dolphins,” is a clever and thought-provoking anti-cyberbullying effort by Google/YouTube, the National Crime Prevention Council and Saatchi & Saatchi. Watch closely, you’ll probably be surprised what happens.
“Think before you comment” is a slogan many more web users need to take to heart. Circle of Respect is:
…the National Crime Prevention Council’s (NCPC) latest and most comprehensive campaign to protect youth from bullying and cyberbullying. Launching in October [2009], the campaign seeks to change the commonly held belief that bullying is a rite of passage, and teaches instead that such behavior is unacceptable through a positive, pro-social message that encourages respect and consideration for others. To succeed in its mission, the Circle of Respect will feature an education campaign, outreach materials including publications and public service advertising, and partnership efforts to reach a national audience.
This video (RE: Cry of the Dolphins) is one of the Circle of Respect project’s outreach videos. Kudos to the authors and producers.
H/T to Melodie Fulmer of the Oklahoma State Department of Education (21st Century Schools Program) for alerting me to this video.
I’ve been interested to see organizational Twitter accounts in the past few months which have been established but are either protected or not in use. Oklahoma City Public Schools has an official Twitter account but has updates protected.
My request to follow updates was granted, so I am able to see and follow OKCPS Twitter updates once I log into Twitter, but I’m quite mystified why the district continues to have a “protected” Twitter account. The district’s Facebook fan page is not protected, so anyone can click the link provided on the OKCPS homepage and immediately become a ‘fan.’ I certainly encourage both individuals as well as organizations to carefully consider who they choose to “follow” in Twitter, since we can be judged by the company we keep both online and in person, but protecting updates on Twitter in this context seems counterproductive to the goal of providing an open and free flow of information and updates about your organization.
Worse than setting up a Twitter account and protecting updates, however, is the practice of setting up an organizational Twitter account and never using it or using it only once.
Servenet.org is a nonprofit I learned about because of a visit to The King Center online today and a link in their left sidebar under “Get Involved.” Servenet includes a prominent icon on the right sidebar of their website homepage inviting visitors to follow them on Twitter.
If Twitter use is something which is going to be “phased in” for Servenet, I’d say it’s about time to start tweeting!
Tools like Ping.fm can help individuals post information updates to multiple accounts simultaneously. I use the free Wordpress plugin Twitter Tools to send new posts on several blogs immediately to Twitter. I have not figured out how to post updates to an organizational Facebook “fan” page from Wordpress, but I’m sure there must be a way. (We needed this for the K-12 Online Conference this year, and had to manually copy/paste Twitter updates to our Facebook page.)
My advice to organizations regarding inactive Twitter and Facebook pages is: If you’re not going to use one of these platforms to regularly communicate with constituents, don’t set up the accounts in the first place! If you’re going to setup an organizational Twitter account, don’t protect your updates. As an organization, you’re using Twitter to better communicate with people on the public Internet. Protecting your updates impedes others being able to view your updates, so it doesn’t make sense to do it.
For individuals, however, I’d give different advice. I think it is important to try out and experiment with different types of social media tools. After creating a profile on a website, however, I think it’s worth considering whether or not you want to maintain or delete that account. I probably need to delete my profile on MySpace which I never use and hadn’t visited (until this evening as I composed this post) for months. This is not the case with Twitter, since it does not provide a “comment wall,” but with sites like MySpace, FaceBook, and others your account can accumulate unwanted and/or inappropriate comments over time which could reflect poorly on your digital footprint. I guess we could call this process “digital footprint cleanup” or “digital footprint maintenance.” If you’re a technology early-adapter you likely have accounts on multiple sites on which you’re no longer active. It’s important to realize some profiles on some social networking sites continue to actively “live” and may grow… so consider carefully if you want to keep those accounts or delete them if you find yourself not using them.
I have found it helpful (thanks to a tip from James Deaton months ago) to maintain a list of the websites to which I actively contribute on ClaimID. (claimid.com/wfryer) I went ahead and deleted my MySpace page from that list this evening, but haven’t deleted my actual MySpace profile yet. I also deleted it from my “Connections and Contributions” links in my blog’s left sidebar, along with links to the TechLearning Blog (to which I no longer contribute regularly), the website 43Things, and my handouts site on PBworks which I’m migrating to wiki.wesfryer.com (made with Google Sites) in 2010. Lots of digital footprint maintenance!
I’ve collected a series of links and put them in my course outline for my “Technology 4 Teachers” course this semester, under the heading, “Digital Footprints, Privacy and Information Disclosure.” I recently added a link to Yahoo’s Safety website: FAQs about your Digital Reputation. I think it’s a good idea to use the term “digital reputation” when discussing these “digital footprint” ideas and skills with students.
It’s important to be both proactive and vigilant when it comes to protecting our digital reputations and digital footprints.
My 9 year old, Sarah, led this session several weeks ago in Maine at the ACTEM09 Conference. Thanks to TWiT Podcast 218, I learned this week (in advance of the session in Tonganoxie) that Google Profiles now officially permit users to assertively take some control over the results displayed when others search for names on Google. This is how my Google profile is shown at the bottom of search results for my name:
What do people see when they find you online? You can control how you appear in Google by creating a personal profile…
Help people find the right information when they search for you on Google.
Create a personal page that links to your blog and other profiles.
Keep family and friends up to date with your contact info and photos.
Google Profiles joins claimid.com and friendfeed.com as free sites which can be used to “stake your virtual claim” in cyberspace for your own digital footprint, similar metaphorically to the ways 3rd graders in many Oklahoma schools “stake claims” as they re-enact the land runs of the late 1800s in the United States.
Both Google Profiles (of course) and Friendfeed are owned and operated by Google. ClaimID is a service catering to online reputation management, defined on WikiPedia as:
…the practice of consistent research and analysis of one’s personal or professional, business or industry reputation as represented by the content across all types of online media. It is also sometimes referred to as online reputation monitoring, maintaining the same acronym.
… online image management or online personal branding or personal reputation management (PRM) is a set of methods for generating a distinguished Web presence of a person on the Internet. That presence could be reflected in any kind of content that refers to the person, including news, participation in blogs and forums, personal web sites, social media presence, pictures, video, etc.
Another change from my presentation at ACTEM about “digital footprints” was the use of a video from EduTopia’s Digital Generation Project today. This fantastic video series includes ten videos about diverse youth around the United States who are using digital technologies for fun and learning. I heard Milton Chen talk about and share the Digital Generation Project last week in Hangzhou, China. Today I shared Virginia’s Story with our session participants. These videos are superb to use in sessions like this discussing Internet safety and digital citizenship. Virginia is a student of Vicki Davis in Camilla, Georgia.
The August 31, 2009, post “The Social Media Mullet” on Blogging 4 Jobs includes some interesting advice for the percentage of an adult’s digital footprint which should be allocated to professional posts and content relative to personal ones. H/T to MetroTech (OKC) for this link.
Resources from my keynote and both breakout sessions at TIC TAC are available from this link, which I shared via a free SMS business card using Contxts during our opening session in the morning. H/T to Karen Montgomery for sharing Contxts with me months ago. It’s a great way to provide others with a link to your presentation resources and handouts!
The highlight of the presentation, IMHO, was Rachel teaching the librarians about the commercial social networking website Club Penguin. Her segment begins in the second video clip below, at minute mark 18:20.
I was able to successfully Ustream the session live and archive the video, but for some reason Ustream split it into two parts. The audio quality was pretty good, since I used my Nady Wireless Mic setup, but I had the Ustream video quality ratcheted down because of a prior test in a location with poorer bandwidth. I wish I’d increased it for today’s Ustream, but at least the entire session did record fine with good audio. I apologize for the graininess of the video, and the fact that the projector’s screen is not readable in the video.
It was a delight to share this presentation and these ideas with Oklahoma public librarians, and again present with one of my children as I’ve been able to do several times this fall. Kids really can be effective communicators about technology topics with adults, and it’s a delight to see my own children developing their confidence and poise speaking in public.
The days of photographic privacy are over. It is important for people of all ages, but especially teenagers who are most prone to rash behavior, to understand this and its implications. Chris Foresman’s November 2, 2009 article for ARS Technica, “Students suspended for racy slumber party pics, file lawsuit,” is the latest well-publicized case in point. Two sophomore girls at Churubusco High School in Churubusco, IN, , were punished at school as student athletes for photos taken at a sleepover with friends the previous summer. Chris wrote:
Obviously the two girls didn’t want everyone to see the pictures, so they posted them with the privacy controls set so only friends could see them. However, the photos were copied and eventually ended up on the desk of Austin Couch, the school’s principal.
Couch then punished the girls based on the school’s athletic code, which provides sanctions for student athletes that engage in behavior in or out of school that “creates a disruptive influence on the discipline, good order, moral or educational environment at Churubusco High School.” The two girls were barred from participating in any extracurricular activities, made to apologize for the photos to an all-male coaches board (which the complaint describes as “profoundly embarrassing”), and forced to undergo “humiliating” counseling.
Back in April 2009, a California court ruled photos posted to an online social networking website (MySpace in this situation) cannot be considered “private.” This latest case from Indiana will put this plea to the test again, but in slightly different circumstances since the posters DID share the images with privacy controls enabled.
I agree with John Palfrey’s point about online privacy on social networking sites in the article. Palfrey is a Harvard University law professor and co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Polfrey, quoted in the article,
…said that the idea of privacy on social networking websites is merely an illusion, even with added privacy controls. He also believes that schools have a right to regulate a student’s online activities, but the court will have to determine if the two girls in this case had their First Amendment right violated.” The fact that it took place in cyberspace instead of in a classroom doesn’t mean you don’t enforce the rule,” he told the AP.
I do not agree that schools should have an unrestricted right to “regulate a student’s online activities,” however, and will watch this case with interest. We definitely have situations in some of our Oklahoma schools where officials have stepped over the line and ignored the fact that students in schools still do possess constitutional rights, including limited free speech. In this Churubusco High School case, it appears the school officials took an overly broad interpretation of what constitutes a “disruption in the school environment.” Since the photos were taken the previous summer, made no reference to school, and were not brought into the school by the students in question, it seems highly doubtful the school administration can make a disruption case following the Tinker precedent. Of course, I’m also not a school lawyer, so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Whatever the court rules in this case, the fact is that these photos have gone public and the girls in question are understandably embarrassed. This supports my primary point in this post: Photographic privacy is over. Whether or not you post a photo online or someone else does, it can end up on the desk of your school principal, your boss at work, or your mother. We may not like it, we can gripe about it, but this is the reality of the online, networked world in which we live.
In contexts like this, it certainly seems wonderful NOT to be growing up as a teen today. With all your friends armed with digital cameras and camcorders on their cell phones, how many different incidents from your youth could have landed you in the principal’s office if the school district took the same posture towards those photos as school officials in Fort Wayne, Indiana have in this case?
Amanda MacMillan’s article last month for CNN Health, “Internet addiction linked to ADHD, depression in teens” highlights a troubling study from Taiwan pointing to widespread Internet addiction problems faced by adults as well as youth. This paragraph really got my attention:
Our culture practically mandates time online, he (Dr. Dimitri A. Christakis of the Center for Child Health, Behavior, and Development, in Seattle) says, with Wi-Fi connections in coffee shops and BlackBerries and iPhones that allow Internet access almost anywhere. “It would be as if we mandated that everyone drink two beers every day or everyone gamble for an hour every day,” says Christakis.
Are you addicted to the Internet? Is hyperlinked reading and writing consuming more of your time than is probably healthy? How about online games? How many people in your family are addicted to Farmville now? This article and cited study provides a definition of Internet addiction:
Definitions vary, but an Internet addiction usually includes symptoms such as spending a lot of time on the Internet (especially more time than intended), an inability to cut back on usage, a preoccupation with online activities, and symptoms of withdrawal such as anxiety, boredom, or irritability after a few days of not going online.
A technology fast over the upcoming holidays may be able to serve as a personal litmus test for Internet addiction. Whether or not you think you are addicted to online activities, this is a good conversation to have with your family members, students and others in your sphere of influence. Balance is essential, and online destinations are more alluring and engaging than ever. We all need to likely grapple with these issues of time spent online and balancing those activities with other priorities in our lives.
This week in the “digital dialog” class I’m leading for local parents and grandparents here in Edmond, Oklahoma, we’re going to watch and discuss the 2007 PBS Frontline special “Growing Up Online.” The entire program remains online to watch for free, and provides a good overview of many digital issues which continue to confront our families, communities and schools. Many of the issues the film raises are parenting and adolescence issues, not strictly “technology” issues. Technology is in many cases the AMPLIFIER of different challenges and situations, rather than the “cause” or source. In our class we’re going to use some of the questions from the teacher study/discussion guide to explore many of these topics in our 1.5 hour class together Wednesday night.
Videos have been and continue to be submitted by viewers via YouTube and tagged “dig_nat” for aggregation. PBS is publishing interview segments via their YouTube channel in advance of the final relese of Digital Nation. This short story (1.5 minutes) from Rebecca Self reflects the kind of amazing, connected tales of romance and relationships which are now possible online, and can counterbalance some of the over-the-top predator danger programs we’ve seen and heard frequently in mainstream media channels the past few years.
I am concerned that mainstream media advocacy like this, simply for “more digital activities” for students without a pedagogic foundation in constructivist PBL, may not ultimately result in digital learning outcomes we need in our schools and society. We do NOT simply need to provide students with “more digital activities.” We need to restructure the expectations and tasks within schools so students are not simply consuming digital versions of 20th century course materials, but rather becoming active content creators and collaborators demonstrating compentency in higher order thinking all along the 2001 revision of Bloom’s taxonomy.
“Digital Nation” is scheduled for broadcast by PBS in Winter 2010. It is fantastic that program producers are publishing program segments in advance and soliciting participation from anyone. I may submit a video at some point this fall, discussing my own concerns and perspectives about digital engagement and “shifting” our schools to a CCC model. Perhaps you and your students should consider submitting video contributions as well?
These are my notes from Robyn Treyvaud’s keynote, “Our 21st Century Challenge: Developing Responsible, Ethical and Resilient Digital Citizens.” at the 21st Century Learning @ Hong Kong Conference on 18 September 2009. MY COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. Robyn is the author and owner of www.cybersafeworld.com. Her wiki on digital citizenship (created with WetPaint) is http://digicitizen-wiki.com. On delicious, Robyn is rtreyvaud.
A Place is NOT a THING
showing a graphic of MySpace contacts
- your friends
– your friends’ friends
— your friends’ friends’ friends
Story of a student using YouTube, after using the software “Guitarmaster Pro Net,” simply titled: Guitar
Quite a community has grown up around this video
From “Circuits of Cool / Digital Playground” study in 2007
- average person connected to digital technology has:
– 94 phone numbers
– 78 people on instant messenger list
– 86 people in his/her social networking community
Many students today observe those statistics and note
technology is an enabler
almost all young people are using technology to ENHANCE rather than replace face-to-face interaction
2007 DEMOS report “Their Space: Education for a Digital Generation”
- found use of digital technology has been completely normalized by this generation of young people
- majority of young people use new media to make their lives easier
This generation is capable of self-regulation when kept informed about issues
THIS IS A HUGE AND IMPORTANT POINT
bedroom culture
- many methods in use by kids to keep their online activities shield from parent awareness and involvement
Just like in the offline world, no amount of effort to reduce potential risks to children will eliminate those risks completely. We cannot make the internet completely safe. Because of this, we must also build children’s resilience to the material to which they may be exposed so that they have the confidence and skills to navigate these new media waters more safely.
- point 13:
Through the right combination of successes against these three objectives – reducing availability, restricting access and increasing resilience to harmful and inappropriate material online – we can adequately manage the risks to children online. A number of efforts are already being made in pursuit of these objectives, and the strengths and weaknesses of these are explored in Chapter 3. But we need a more strategic approach if industry, families, government and others in the public and third sectors are going to work effectively together to help keep children safe.
Gap between generations should be closed
- need to engage students in the educational process
- leverage youth’s knowledge about the online environment and safety
Australia in 2007 study: compared concerns of parents vs concerns of kids
Whose Myth? Whose Reality?
- many parents concerned about Internet addiction
Contrary to popular assumptions, posting personally identifying information does not appear to increase risk in and of itself. Rather, risk is associated with interactive behavior. Further, youth who engage in a high number of different potentially risky online behaviors (e.g., having unknown people on a buddy list, seeking pornography online, using the Internet to harass others) are also more at risk (Wolak et al. 2008b; Ybarra et al. 2007c).
Dana Boyd was chair of the lit review committee of this study
Help young people learn to do what is right, regardless of the potential of detection and punishment. To do this, we must enhance their reliance on their own internalized personal moral code. We must shift our focus away from rules and threats of punishments. Threats of punishment are simply an ineffective approach when the likelihood of detection and punishment is so remote. The message: “Don’t do this because it is against the rules” has limited impact if you believe that you are invisible and that your actions cannot and will not be detected and punished.
Instead, we must focus the attention of young people on the reasons for the rules. Rules are generally enacted because actions that violate the rules can cause harm to someone else. So our focus must be on the potential harm, not the rule. In a world where we are invisible, a much more powerful message is: “Don’t do this because if you do you will harm someone by (describe the possible harmful impact of the action) “
We used to believe before we had research, that the third level (friends of friends of friends) would be where most of the online offending takes place (strangers)
- now because of research we know it happens at the first level, FRIENDS
From study
Online bullying begins in year 2, it can be exclusion on Club Penguin
Sending and receiving of sexual content is experiencing by primary age students
Article “10 Things I Wish Adults Knew About the Online World” (MS WORD – HTML)
1. Teens Are Doing The Same Things Teens Have Always Done—Just Digitally.
2. The Predator Issue Has Been Sensationalized By The Media
3. Teens Won’t Talk About Cyber-Bullying Out Of Fear That You’ll“Take The Internet Away
4. Preteens Will Lie About Their Age Inorder To Join A Social-Networking Site
5. Teens Have A Different Perception Of Privacy Than You Do
6. Multitasking Makes Concentrating Hard—Even For Teens.
7. They Spend More Time Online For School Than You Think.
8. Teens Are Creating Media.
9. Blocking, Filtering, And Monitoring May Work For Young Children, But Notfor Teens.
10. There Are No Easy Answers.
THESE ARE GREAT RESOURCES AND I’M GOING TO USE THEM IN UPCOMING SESSIONS OF DIGITAL DIALOG
We have common naivete among youth that they are NOT publishing in “myspace” – it is a public space
research shows multi-tasking can lead to homework taking 2 or 3 times as long to complete
Advice for parents on home internet filtering: consider those filters just 1 level of protection, there must be communication about these issues regularly
Challenges of ethical behavior in these digital environments
Law in Australia: kids need to understand long term impacts and ramification
- in Victoria there is no statute of limitations
- kids lose control over the ownership of that image
now discussing number of illegally downloaded songs on student mp3 players
What happens to your personal data?
- MySpace’s privacy policy indicates that their data/information is transmitted to the US where laws may be different than those in their country
That video really resonates with kids, it is an excellent resource to use with them
At the heart of what we need to do to address these issues is student voice
- if students are not involved, none of these approaches are going to be effective and real
In your school, do AUPs reflect our current conditions?
- do you have incident response procedures
- what about your curriculum: how can you embed digital citizenship?
- wonderful opportunities for peer education and mentoring
- more….
Finding quality resources: Google results are overwhelming (showing examples of different queries)
- my wiki has some of these resources and more: http://digicitizen-wiki.com
New Australian cybersmart site, includes units of work students and teachers can utilize: http://cybersmart.gov.au
I will continue to remain optimistic as long as we continue to involve young people in the decisions which affect their lives
These are my notes from Robyn Treyvaud’s workshop, “The Natives are Getting Restless: Growing Up and Learning in a Web 2.0 World” at the 21st Century Learning @ Hong Kong Conference on 18 September 2009. MY COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. Robyn is the author and owner of www.cybersafeworld.com. Her wiki on digital citizenship (created with WetPaint) is http://digicitizen-wiki.com.
Why do you think I titled this session “the natives are restless?”
Much of my background was in the government sector in Melbourne, Australia. I left to work on a laptop project with David Loder at Wellsley College. My greatest challenge: I had been in leadership positions and wanted to go back to the classroom to see how the laptop could transform my learning and my teaching. This was well over 10 years ago. At the time, I noticed the girls were using the technology very differently from the boys. Girls perceived there was not anything “for them” on the Internet and the laptop. Asked girls what you want to use the laptop for, and they said we just want to be able to communicate with each other, to create websites, and to work together / collaborate.
In those days it was Netscape Navigator, started all-girl computer club called “Geek is Chic”
- was going to be 1 lunch per week, girls really wanted to come in much more
- communication and creation really empowered the girls
- girls created a flash-based website
Taught me it’s all about meeting the needs of individual students
Then I became a PYP leader
All through these times, I became very aware of the ethical / digital citizenship side of this
On delicious, Robyn is rtreyvaud
- I used to find the biggest time wasting took place when kids used Google going to the library and doing their own research
- we used to create a website hotlist
- now using a site like delicious we don’t have to even do that
- most of the resources for today are on this account
aspect we’ll focus on 2nd: the 21st century literacies
- how to we teach and scaffold these to help students become critical, discerning users of these resources
“Digital media is a broad term youth use loosely to define a wide range of information and communications technologies, entertainment and news sources”
- kids navigate: internet, social networks, news media that deliver content digitally, video game consoles, mp3 players, mobile phones and other mobile devices
- digital media is ubiquitous: youth describe themselves as “always connected” and not always in front of a computer
digital media connects issues with people
- youth not overly interested in tech/media for its own sake: they are interested in social aspects, opportunities to use info/communication tools to connect with others
- connects with isues and people
- embedded in social contexts, shape relationships and extends communication
video games: youth don’t tend to see them as isolated experiences able to promote their learning on their own
Time magazine article from 2006: “In this media drenched era of blogs and podcasts, Google searches and Instant Messages young people need to acquire a new set of literacy skills that allow them…”
Example video of student voice: Learning to Change/ Changing to Learn: Student Voices
- we will discuss:
– are these students sitting in your class?
– do you know what technologies they use?
– how will you find out?
– what does this mean for schools?
THIS MAKES ME THINK THAT I SHOULD OFFER MYSELF UP AS A FREE LEARNING CONSULTANT FOR STUDENT RESEARCH IN MY CHILDREN’S OWN SCHOOLS, TO HELP TEACHERS AS WELL AS STUDENTS DISCUSS AND DEVELOP THESE CRITICAL LITERACIES FOR INFORMATION ACCESS / RESEARCH.
Discussion questions:
- do these videos reflect contemporary teaching and learning challenges?
- If so, what are they?
- Do you agree or disagree with the ‘messages?”
- What are they?
Teacher response:
- I’m aware of students’ other world / digital world, but really I’m not able to smoothly integrate those things into what we are doing and learning in the classroom
- there are pockets of people who try to integrate those worlds
categories of sites from Slideshare, WEb 2.0 Student Teachers, 14-9-09
- Blog: post (text, audio, video, photo), read, comment, feed
- social bookmarking: web sites, bookmark, tag, share
- podcast / vodcast: audio and video, feed, podcatcher, media player
- wiki: content (text in web pages), collaborate, edit, save
Discussion questions
- Do you block sites at your school? Why or why not?
- Do you use blogs, wikis, social bookmarking and podcasts?
- How are you using them?
- What other web 2.0 applications are used at your school?
Response: the blocks at school don’t stop me from doing what I want to do, but it does prevent the teachable moment, “what do you do when you encounter this?”
reasons for blocking
- legal liability
- parental fear
Conundrum: how can we transform learning if we are not current with the technologies
Some teachers using
- wikis
- Google docs
In one school, Google Docs and the immediacy with which students can comment and respond to comments has really enhanced student writing quality
- tough part is balancing a traditional
Moral Compass: What do YOU do when no one is watching?!
- copyright and intellectual property issues play in this space
In many cases we are not scaffolding how you research and make sense of what you find when you research
Ethics in the digital age
- ethical questions are about right and wrong, good and bad, just and unjust
They matter because what we do affects us individually, affects our community, and can even affect epople we do not know or see
- Australian group is now sharing videos with musical artists, talking about their creation process and the impact of not receiving money from their work
The vast majority of districts prohibit:
- online chatting
- instant messaging
- sending or receiving email during school
- posting on bulletin boards or blogs
- using social networking sites
Almost all use software to block certain sites and require parents or students to sign an internet use policy
Do you like to surf Myspace? How about Bebo? Are you at school or work, and bored, and want to access Myspace or Bebo from school or from work but those sites are blocked? Well you came to the right place. SneakySir Proxy is your answer to blocked websites like Myspace. All you have to do is enter the site you want to visit (www.myspace.com) for example, hit the “Begin Browsing” icon, and SneakySir sneaks your right through to your favorite website! Sneakysir fully supports Myspace logins, Bebo logins, Flash Arcade logins, and many more websites, all for free! You can edit your Myspace profile, view other people’s Myspace profiles, and more, all from work, home or school! Have fun browsing!
ethical dilemmas with copying digital content, file sharing, etc.
Book recommendation: Media: New Ways and Meanings by Burton, Lee
I’VE GOT TO LEAVE THIS SESSION UNFORTUNATELY TO GO SHARE MY OWN ON PODCASTING! END OF NOTES….
Robyn Treyvaud shared the following YouTube video, “Digital Dossier,” with me today at the 21st Century Learning @ Hong Kong Conference. The 4.5 minute video is a thought-provoking exploration of the “digital footprints” we leave behind along with others as we share online. This video can be a good conversation starter with students as well as adults about issues related to online safety, digital citizenship, privacy, etc.
Robyn is the author and owner of the website CyberSafeWorld, and hails from Australia. She will share the workshops “The Natives are Getting Restless: Growing Up and Learning in a Web 2.0 World” Friday and “Opportunities & outcomes of students as partners in responding to cyber issues” on Saturday here in Hong Kong. Robyn is very focused on helping dispel myths regarding Internet dangers, and encouraging a focus on “digital citizenship” rather than simply “Internet safety” in our schools. I’m eager to learn more from her this week!
The YouTube Online Safety Center provides an excellent set of tips and steps users as well as content creators can take if they find a video which has violated community guidelines and should be removed.
In the past six hours I’ve filed a copyright takedown request (via the YouTube copyright complaint webform) for a copied video of Sarah’s response to President Obama, which has advertising added to it, and have just flagged a response video because it includes profane and sexually explicit attacks on my daughter. I am not linking to those videos because I do not want to amplify them. Wonderfully, I can report that the attack video which I flagged was taken down by YouTube staff within 15 minutes of me flagging it.
Way to go YouTube!
Hopefully YouTube staff will respond to my copyright takedown request soon. It sounds like those requests take longer to investigate and therefore remove.
Whoa! What happened? I’m not 100% certain, but apparently thanks to Twitter and Facebook links it was shared rather widely yesterday, including on the site Reddit. (H/T to PBKrissy.)
I’m sure Sarah will be as surprised as I was to see those view statistics when she comes home from school today. How amazing to think that she shared her thoughts with over 17,000 people in the last 24 hours… The day of social networking and viral video sharing in which we live is remarkable, and is fraught with opportunities as well as dangers. In any previous era of human history, would a 9 year old have had a similar chance to share her voice and thoughts with others around the world, particularly in a comparable timeframe? I don’t think so. Even though I work with social media constantly, situations like this still amaze me.
The global stage is here.* Are we having the conversations we need to have with each other to not only remain safe, but also leverage the tremendous power this learning and communications platform affords us?
Consider the fact that this presentation was recorded in December 2007, a year and a half ago. These statistics are amazing, but they are, in fact, outdated. Wow.
I was delighted to read Kathleen Kennedy Manzo’s article for the latest issue of Education Week today, “Filtering Fixes,” which features on-the-mark quotations about how we should be approaching Internet filtering in our schools from Shawn Nutting (of Trussville, Alabama schools) and others. The lead image includes April Chamberlain and Shawn, who are both past presenters in the free K-12 Online Conference.
Before I share some quotations from Kathleen’s article and comment on them, I’ll share a few related links connected to Shawn and April.
“We are known in our district for technology, so I don’t see how you can teach kids 21st-century values if you’re not teaching them digital citizenship and appropriate ways of sharing and using everything that’s available on the Web,” said Shawn Nutting, the technology director for the Trussville district. “How can you, in 2009, not use the Internet for everything? It blows me away that all these schools block things out” that are valuable.
One of the reasons many schools are not “using the Internet for everything” today is because of multiple digital divides. Not only do we have digital divides of access and connectivity in many of our communities, but we also have enormous knowledge divides among educators in our schools. These are BIG reasons why free, online professional development opportunities like the K-12 Online Conference are so important, and why the 2009 theme for the conference (“Bridging the Divide”) is so relevant today. It’s also why educating our school LEADERS about these issues is critical. If the leaders don’t “get it,” the change won’t happen systemically. Good leadership matters.
“The majority of our schools are overblocking and overcensoring the Web,” said Wesley Fryer, the executive director of Storychasers Inc., a nonprofit organization that hosts a digital storytelling site that provides historical resources to Oklahoma schools and communities. Mr. Fryer, a digital-learning consultant and former elementary school teacher in Oklahoma City, writes frequently about educational technology issues on his blog, Moving at the Speed of Creativity.
“Some of that is understandable because of the risk-averse, conservative nature of schools,” he said. “My position is not ‘don’t block,’ but let’s filter reasonably and let’s also talk with students about choices and digital literacy and ethics, and let’s prepare kids for the unfiltered Web.”
These dynamics of overblocking the web in our schools is a primary motivator behind the wiki project, “Unmasking the Digital Truth.”
“We know kids use these tools, so we really feel obligated to help kids use them right and prepare them for what they face in the world every day,” said Superintendent Suzanne Freeman, who has two teenagers attending high school in the district. “Kids have access to a lot [on the Internet], whether we want to believe it or not. I would worry about it if we didn’t prepare kids to use these tools properly.”
How refreshing and inspiring it is to hear a school superintendent share this vision. Bravo Suzanne, and bravo Trussville School Board!
From Trussville Schools library media specialist Rachel Brockman:
“We basically start to train students as early as kindergarten about things to look for out there and strategies to help them stay safe” on the Internet, Ms. Brockman said. “Rather than saying this is a scary tool and something bad could happen, instead we believe it’s an incredible tool that connects you with the entire world out there. … [L]et’s show you the best way to use it.”
Advocating an outlook of proactive saavy rather than panicked fear? Yes! Let’s hear it for library media specialists as digital learning leaders!
From 12th grade Trussville Schools English teacher Eric Jenkins:
“I’m a big advocate for experiential learning, but it’s kind of hard to teach Internet etiquette or rules of how to act and interact online without exposing them to the stuff that’s out there,” Mr. Jenkins said. “It’s hard to teach those things in a vacuum.”
It’s also hard to learn how to swim without getting wet. Eric is on target: We have to use social media tools and technologies with our students, to learn how to safely navigate and intelligently utilize these resources.
And the closing quotation from yours truly:
“If we don’t want to take risks, let’s not let kids go outside for recess and let’s not let anyone go on the Internet,” Mr. Fryer said. “But if we recognize what’s developmentally appropriate, we know we need to get them outside exercising and playing in digital sandboxes and giving them opportunities to become ethical digital citizens.”
Kudos to Kathleen Kennedy Manzo and Education Week for researching and publishing an article on Internet content filtering which presents a much more balanced, thoughtful, and proactive approach toward digital citizenship than we typically see amplified in mainstream media.
Edmond school leaders, are you listening? Oprah, are you listening? There WILL be a test on these ideas, and the stakes are high: It’s the educational present and future of our children, our communities, our nation, and our world.
This podcast features a recording of Ginger Lumen’s presentation with her students at the 2009 PodStock conference entitled, “Students as Self-Advocates: Why/How Learners Should Craft Their Own Digital Footprints.” The official conference description of the session was: When you last “Googled” your name, what did you find? All learners should ponder those results when considering potential colleges, scholarships, jobs, and even future mates. Is it better for the results to come up poorly or not at all? Come learn how we can help our children become more digitally literate and earn an A+ in Digital Citizenship. [END OF DESCRIPTION] The Podstock conference bio for Ginger Lumen stated: Ginger is the Director of the f2f Program at Turning Point Learning Center, a charter school in Emporia, KS. The f2f Program has been developing over the past 3 years with a PBL, 21st Century, global orientation for our 5th-8th graders. The result has been the Life Practice Model, where students are practicing skills and habits that will truly prepare them for the real world. Ginger graduated from Emporia State University with a BSE in Social Science and an MS in Psychology/Special Education: Gifted Education. She also serves as the KS Education Policy and Legislative Liaison for the Kansas Association for the Gifted, Talented, and Creative and serves as part of the Kansas Learning First Alliance. [END OF BIO] Please refer to the podcast shownotes for related links and resources.
Podcast328: Students as Self-Advocates: Why/How Learners Should Craft Their Own Digital Footprints (Ginger Lumen) [48:30m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1365)
Now that I’m finding myself traveling more for presentations and just “working” in coffee shops, airports, and other venues, I’m thinking more about the dangers of shared WiFi access. I don’t want to be an alarmist or over-react, but I also want to be well informed and take reasonable precautions to safeguard my own information and my digital footprint.
Security experts warn that hackers may be masquerading as free public Wi-Fi providers to gain access to the laptops of unsuspecting travelers. All it takes, they say, is a computer program downloaded from the Internet, an open access point and a user who has ignored basic security advice. “The difficulty for travelers is differentiating between a good Internet access hotspot and a rogue, or somebody trying to actually glean credentials from you. The issue is that you don’t necessarily know the difference between a good and a bad one,” computer security expert Sean Remnant told CNN.
This morning I am working from Java Dave’s coffee house in downtown Oklahoma City, and I’ve opted to use my AT&T 3G network card rather than the provided free Wifi. I’ve been eyeing iPhone tethering options (which don’t require a jailbreak) like Netshare, EnableTethering.com, and iPhoneModem which could make my 3G network laptop card unnecessary, but I haven’t tried any of those methods yet. I am under the impression (but could be mistaken) that one of the main benefits of using a cell phone network Internet connection IS security, since packet sniffers like Aircrack are much less likely to be in use / effective on AT&T’s data network than they could be on an open WiFi network like we have here at Java Daves. The website Wirelessdefence.org has a good listing of security precautions that can be taken to lock down / secure a wifi access point at your home, school, or other place of business. Not using Wifi at all, and instead using a cellular network Internet connection, is a suggestion that isn’t on the list but is worth considering if you have that option when connecting on the road.
Have you personally had a bad experience with your information, login credentials, or websites getting compromised because you were “hacked” at an open WiFi public access point? Have you heard others share stories about this? I know some folks who’ve had ID theft problems, but none that were traceable to a WiFi Internet hacker. Are you opting to tether your iPhone or other smartphone when you connect online away from home now, instead of using free WiFi access points, because of security concerns? What have your experiences been with smartphone tethering?
The Security Now Podcast has some good episodes addressing WiFi security issues, including #89 “Even More Badly Broken WEP,” and #11 “Bad WiFi Security.” Hat tip to Manuel Gonzales and Eric Hileman for sharing some of the links above and helping me think more about security issues in the past few weeks.
Wesley Fryer is the author of Moving at the Speed of Creativity. DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed herein are my own and not necessarily those of my employer(s). See my disclosure policy for more info. I am wfryer on Diigo.
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