Internet Safety

Last week our class completed a series of Internet Safety workshops, facilitated by Mr. Marenchin.  Three separate topics were covered on three days:  Cyberbullying, Sexting, and Leaving a Digital Footprint.  Please check out the information letter that you can access here. We viewed some timely videos and had candid, age-appropriate discussions about the appropriate use of technology.  To sum it all up, here is the main idea:  students in elementary school are too young to be given the privilege to have access to the Internet, via any type of device (ipad, ipod, Xbox, smartphone, etc.), because they do not fully understand the ramification of most of their actions and they are still too impulsive.

The flyer at the left was sent home last week advertising a parent information evening, to be held at Holy Names High School on June 2.  The guest speaker is Paul Davis and he is phenomenal - I have heard him speak.  I highly recommend that at least ONE parent from each family attend this event.

Here are some of the idea that he presents regarding this topic:
Rule #1 - Each person's bedroom MUST be an Internet free zone. (according to his statistics 93% of students in grade 4/5/6 currently have technology in their bedrooms)
Rule #2 - Students in these grade levels are too young for Facebook and Instagram since they must be 13 to legally use it.  If they are currently using these social media tools, they had to lie about their age to get access.  Why would we give them permission to lie about their age?  Can you see potential problems with this down the road?

Gaming online (including XBOX, Wii, and Playstation) can be problematic.  Many instances of cyberbullying have been related to this.  Also, many students are playing games that they should not have access to because of their rating by the ESRB (M17+, A18+, for example).  Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, and many other popular games are not appropriate.

He does not recommend any of the following apps:  Snapchat, Omegle, ask.fm, vine, Instagram, or Facebook, to name a few.

If any of this sparks interest in you, please check out the parent evening on June 2.  Check out this link to get more information about Paul Davis. Seriously consider this.  Our children are being desensitized to sex and violence at an earlier and earlier age, partially due to their unsupervised access to the internet.