January 24, 2014 – Keeping Our Kids Cyber Safe

Happy Friday everyone!!

Although, in the past I have shared technology programs and iPad apps for classroom use, this week I happened to come across a rather shocking study regarding technology usage by Canadian teens and feel it is important to share. 

In 2013, Media Smarts surveyed over 5 000 Canadian students in grades 4 through 11 in every province and territory in Canada. Here is a brief outline of the results:

·         99 percent of students surveyed have access to the Internet outside of school using a variety of devices. 

·         the biggest change since our last survey is the proliferation of mobile and portable devices, such as tablets, smartphones and MP3 players, which give youth constant – and often unsupervised – online access.  

·         more than a third of students who own cell phones say they sleep with their phones in case they get calls or messages during the night

·         one in six students has gone offline in order to avoid someone who is harassing them.

·         the average number of household rules has actually declined since 2005: for example, in the earlier survey two-thirds of students had a rule at home about meeting people whom they first met online, while only one-half now do.

·         nearly one in four of the youngest children [Grade 4s] owned a mobile device

·         a substantial percentage of younger students ‘never’ sit with an adult or parents when online – almost one third of students in grades 4-6

(Media Smarts, 2004)

Many of the results shared in this document are very worrying for me.  Although I love to see children using technology as a component of their learning, it is imperative that they are using it safely and with the guidance of adults in charge.  As a result, I would like to remind everyone of a few online tools which can assist in teaching children about digital citizenship.  Please take the time with your students to emphasize how to behave safely and make good choices while online.  If you’d like to read the full study results, click here Young Canadians in a wired World

Canada’s Center for Digital and Media Literacy - http://mediasmarts.ca/

Mike Ribble’s Citizenship Webpage - http://www.digitalcitizenship.net/Home_Page.html

- contains ‘Nine Themes of Digital Citizenship’ which is ideal for teaching

Common Sense Media - http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/curriculum

- contains wonderful fully created lesson plans for educators

- online assessment http://assessments.commonsensemedia.org/

Concerned Children’s Advertisers - http://play.longlivekids.ca/educator/media__

Thanks and have a great week,

Stace