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No Adults Allowed!

12/2/2009
Quilt of Trusted Adults

Working with NetSmartz, the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office has empowered children to teach each other about Internet safety. Director of Community Education and Outreach, Cynthia Boyle, shares about their work and what can happen when adults take a step back.

In Massachusetts, Clicky has taken on some additional duties: working with high school students to teach first and second graders how to be safer online. Members of the 2008-2009 Youth Advisory Board (YAB), which consists of high school students from local schools, decided it was time for them to take an active role in helping teach basic Internet safety to the youngest members of their communities.

In addition to teaching with Clicky, YAB members also provide the first and second graders with some hands-on classroom projects that reinforce the safety messages they learned from Clicky. While in the classrooms, YAB members lead discussions with the first and second graders about who a trusted adult is and create a list of the students’ answers. Then, each student is given a quilt square and asked to draw a picture of their trusted adult.

When the students are finished with their drawings, YAB members tie the squares together creating a Quilt of Trusted Adults. Each class keeps their quilt to hang in their classroom for the rest of the school year. Finally, an awards ceremony is held, where the YAB members give each student a Clicky certificate of completion and an activity book to take home.

Through teaching lessons about Internet safety, the YAB members have those concepts reinforced in their own lives. It is just more one step that our community is taking towards helping every child stay safer online.

Some Real NetSmartz Kids

11/25/2009


The students at St. Thomas Aquinas School know what it means to be safer online. Watch them use their NetSmartz in this Internet safety skit.

Have you made your own Internet safety video? Let us know! You could be featured on our blog.

Wanted: Unemployment

11/17/2009
Illustration by Scott Trolan


It’s my job to stay up-to-date with Internet news. This means reading about anything from Facebook’s privacy policies to new iPhone apps. It also means reading about the mistakes that people make online—again and again. And again. These online errors reinforce the need for Internet education programs, like NetSmartz.

But at the same time, please, STOP! Everyday I read stories about people being punished for doing things like posting vulgar status updates or creating fake and defamatory profiles. These aren’t even new mistakes…just the same ones over and over! Sure, the Internet is huge, and the chances of your bad behavior being discovered are slim. But probability isn't much comfort if you are the person that is caught!

So here’s my challenge: put me out of a job. Enough is enough already! Please stop making the same mistakes online. Or do you need to read one more story about someone losing their job because of what they did on Facebook or Twitter?

Unemployment Plan

1) Look at your profile. Is there anything inappropriate or illegal? Get rid of it!
2) Check your privacy settings. Be in of control who sees your information.
3) Review your friends list. Remember, these are the people with access to everything that you post. (Which means your crush just saw that update about your little problem with halitosis.)

Oh, yeah. And think before you post. I know. Soooo obvious. But it clearly needs to be said.