From the Frontline : School is Out

Our lead story is a success story from Rockingham County Schools and the Neustar/EverFi “My Digital Life” initiative. Other stories include the classroom digital device policy re-write in Rockingham County, as well as the continuing Facebook saga, privacy on the web, Twitter, Gangs and on and on . . .

Five things to do before giving your teenager a smartphone
New Facebook Effort Targets Educating School Counselors
Do schools have the right to expel students for tweets?
Rockingham County leads nation with “My Digital Life”
Parent Traps – Don’t monitor your kids’ Web surfing
Microsoft bolsters parental controls with Windows 8
On Facebook, Your Privacy Is Your Friends’ Privacy
Living Out Loud – Should We All Be More “Open?
What to Do If Your Child Is Looking at Porn
Stop Facebook from using YOUR pictures
New Digital Device Policy for Schools
Social Media Guidelines
Meet the 2012 Winners
Teens & Online Video
Texting and Driving
. . . and more :

Safe Netting with Joe Showker

Congrats on Another Great School Year

“From the Frontline” – “Congrats on Another Great School Year” Edition
Internet Safety and Digital Ethics
News briefs for students, parents and professionals living, learning and teaching in the digital world.
Another school year just finished up. It’s been an interesting year with a lot of activity on the digital ethics and net safety front.
Full story : RCPS schools are teaching students and parents about internet safety and digital ethics.

Rockingham County Schools lead Virginia and the nation with “My Digital Life”

Neustar sponsors a new digital learning tool for Virginia’s 8th and 9th graders. ALL four middle schools implemented the online course in the 8th grade computer literacy classes this spring.
778 8th graders participated in the program. …
Full story : RCPS 8th Graders Complete ‘My Digital Life’ Literacy Program

New Digital Device Policy for Schools

School board members were recently presented the new cellphone/digital. The vote to accept it is upcoming. Read the policy at the blog…
Digital Ethics: The NEW Internet Safety In Virginia.
Full story : Rockingham County Schools Lead on “My Digital Life” Initiative

Social Media Guidelines

ashable is out with a report that says Pintrest (which is less than a year old) is the #3 social network in the U.S.
This report mentions that the amount of monthly traffic Facebook receives is seven billion page views, and Twitter receives 182.
Full story : www.edutopia.org/blog/

Do schools have the right to expel students for tweets?

Some schools may be overstepping the mark by spying on their student s social activities in this manner.
The tweet was not racial, sexist, or insulting.
Full story : www.zdnet.com/blog/

Teens & Online Video

“37% of internet users ages 12-17 participate in video chats with others using applications such as Skype, Googletalk or iChat. Girls are more likely than boys to have such chats.”
A+++ for stats and research data.
Full story : pewinternet.org

Meet the 2012 Winners

The challenge? Create a video educating people about staying safe and secure online and using the Internet responsibly.
The prize? $10,000 for the best overall video, and $1,000 to each best-in-category video, for both individual and school entrants.
Full story : whatsyourstory.trendmicro.com

What to Do If Your Child Is Looking at Porn

This column isn’t about young children or children who accidentally come across unwanted sexual material. Those are different issues.
The question I want to explore is how a parent should react if they discover their growing child — typically 12 or older — is deliberately looking at sexually explicit material on the Internet.
Full story : www.huffingtonpost.com

Stop Facebook from using YOUR pictures

From Fred Showker at the UGN….
“Rumors are floating around that a new Facebook policy allows advertisers to use members’ pictures without permission or that Facebook has just agreed to let a third party advertisers use all your posted pictures without your permission. This is basically not true. But Facebook does have a clause in its policy that if they start sharing your photos for ads, then it’s based on your settings.”
Full story : http://www.ugnn.com/2012/06/facebook_ads/

Five things to do before giving your teenager a smartphone

Of course, there are many reasons to be skittish about giving your teenager a smartphone.
Concerns can range from having strangers know where your kids are “checking-in” at any given time, to driving distractions, to voice, text and data fees from your cellular provider that are off the hook
Full story : www.appolicious.com

Living Out Loud – Should We All Be More “Open?

Privacy, the Self and Human Relationships (Part 3 of 7) –
“In a seven-part series Don Tapscott questions this view arguing that we each need a personal privacy strategy.”
Full story : www.huffingtonpost.com

On Facebook, Your Privacy Is Your Friends’ Privacy

Sharing and cross-referencing images can bring “collateral damage,” the report’s authors note:
“Users unintentionally put their friends or even their own privacy at risk when performing actions on social networking sites such as Facebook.”
Full story : www.theatlantic.com

Microsoft bolsters parental controls with Windows 8

Microsoft is aiming to give parents more control over their children’s computer use with a new feature in Windows 8.
With these controls and weekly reports, parents will be able to keep tabs on whether their kids are playing violent online video games, looking at bikini models or actually doing their homework. Parents will also be able to make sure their children aren’t associating with online predators.
Full story : www.cnet.com.au

Texting and Driving

New Survey Shows Friends Are the Number One Influencer for Young Adults Not to Text and Drive
“Ad Council, NHTSA and State Attorneys General Hosting “Stop the Texts” Day on May 1 to Help Address this Epidemic”
Full story : www.prweb.com

New Facebook Effort Targets Educating School Counselors

“aims to teach school counselors how to use Facebook and teach students best practices on the social network. School counselors, who play a major role in some students’ lives, can have an impact on how students represent themselves and interact with one another on Facebook.”

Full story : www.usnews.com

Parent Traps – Don’t monitor your kids’ Web surfing

Columnist Katie Roiphe worries about her 9-year-old on the Internet doing something or other. She writes :
Is this negligent? Am I throwing her to the wolves? I have no idea how to approach these thorny questions, so I have lunch with the academic and Microsoft researcher, danah boyd (she spells her name in lowercase letters for complicated philosophical and aesthetic reasons), who has studied this cluster of issues in an original and challenging way.
Full story : www.slate.com

And a final comment:

Yesterday I attended the Community and Law Enforcement Gang Training through the Attorney General’s office. It was eye opening on the issue that is growing across Virginia and our nation. We learned about how Gangs are using technology and the internet to expand their reach and impact… not good!
Much of what we talk about on the Frontline involving privacy is of greater value than ever before! I encourage all to visit Ken Cuccinelli’s web page

www.oag.state.va.us/