Lisea Lark, 13, talked with bNetS@vvy about some of the ways she and her friends use technologies, why social networks and cell texts have won out over email, and what she does to keeps herself safer online.
You mentioned that you and your friends recently switched from MySpace to Facebook. Why switch, and how do you get everyone to do it together?
MySpace just lets you have a profile, but Facebook connects you to schools around your area, so we’ve switched to be connected more with other schools. You can either message people or comment them. There are lots of things you can do. You can draw pictures for them or take quizzes and stuff to see if you and your friends have the same likes and dislikes.
How it works is, you join a network-your school or town-and then you can upload pictures and write your profile and share stuff. You can invite people to join. But you have to be careful. There’s not a sure way to know that people who message you are who they say they are.
I set my profile to private so that only my friends can see them.
How much time do you spend on these sites?
I use it more during the summer. During the school year, maybe 30 minutes a day. My mom gives me an hour limit during the week, and two hours on weekend. My dad doesn’t have a limit at his house, but he makes me finish my homework before I can get on the computer for fun.
Have you met people in real life that you met on a social networking site?
You can never be 100 percent sure who you’re talking to online. I haven’t ever met someone from online, or been approached, but I have gotten to know some kids better before meeting them in person. Like my best friend … one of my friends knew her and said I should add her to my friends list. So I did and got to know her better. Now she’s one of my best friends.
In general, how much do you worry when you’re online or using your cell phone?
I’m careful but I don’t worry too much, really. If someone requests to be my friend [on a social networking site] and I don’t know who they are, I’ll sometimes ask to see if they’re connected to someone I know or are friends of my friends. If I don’t know them, I always block them.
What about when you accidentally go to an inappropriate Web site? What do you do?
It hasn’t happened to me, but it has happened to a lot of people at my school. They’re researching projects and weird pages come up. They tell the teacher or the librarian.
At school, they talk to us a lot about technology. We have a Technology Code of Conduct that we sign at the beginning of each year, where we promise to only use computers for educational purposes.
Do you use the Internet a lot for school?
We do. Pretty much every project or report does require a computer so the kids that don’t have computers are kind of out of luck.
I use Google a lot, but also my school district Web page because it has a list of sites that are good for different subjects and researching.
It’s hard to know if a site is reliable. I’ve learned the first thing to do is check the spelling. If there are errors, it’s probably not a good resource. And also don’t just get your information from one site, compare between a few and see if they say the same thing. At the bottom of the page, you can usually see when a site was last updated, and that’s good to check sometimes, too.
Do you use email?
I’ve had my own e-mail since before first grade, but I don’t use it much anymore. I use it with family because they don’t have MySpace or Facebook, but my friends use MySpace and Facebook to communicate, or we text on our phones.
Can you have cell phones at school?
We can-as long as our teachers don’t see them. We can’t have them out or anything. I keep mine on vibrate but most kids turn it off or put it on silent. We don’t really use it to talk to each other in school; it’s more for texting or calling our parents when someone forgets something.
Anyone ever had problems with bullying texts, sometimes called “flames”?
Yeah, one bad thing is you’re not sure who’s ‘talking’ or if it’s really that person. Some of my friends have gotten into fights when someone else has stolen the phone and texted something weird. A lot of people borrow other people’s cell phones or ask to look at the phones, so it happens often. I try not to let people use my cell phone to avoid that.
What would you say to an 8-year-old who’s just starting to use the Internet and email for the first time?
Be careful. Make sure you don’t talk to strangers, just like in real life. And remember that nothing is secret online. Any email you send someone can be forwarded and copied, and you might not want that. Don’t say anything you don’t want.
On the Internet, make your search as detailed as possible, because if you type in “American Girl doll” you’ll get a lot of things you probably wouldn’t want to. At that age, I’d say ask your parent to help you.
What advice would you give parents?
I would say it depends on the age. With younger kids, there’s so much bad stuff on the Internet, parents should help them if they’re researching a project. But with older kids, I think parents sometimes overprotect their kids, and sometimes that’s good-but not always.
For example, sometimes the time limit is hard if I’m researching a project, but my Mom is lenient on that and lets me get on her AOL account if I need to finish something.
Are you saying that because your Mom is in the room, by any chance?
Um, she is.
Lisea Lark is a 13-year-old eighth grader who attends a public middle school in Columbia, SC.
By Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach and John Norton
How do teachers, schools and districts balance concerns about Internet safety with the need to help students tap into the World Wide Web’s powerful learning technology? We’ve been working as consultants with some forward-thinking Alabama schools and districts that are determined to find the answer.
“The Internet can seem pretty frightening to cautious educators,” says one high school teacher who participated in a two-year 21st Century Schools project supported by the Alabama Best Practices Center and funded by Microsoft Partners in Learning.
“In my school,” she told us, “teachers are afraid that if they let students use the Web in class, they’re going to access inappropriate material and the teacher is going to be held responsible.”
“There’s a fear factor involved at the district level, too. Some administrators are worried that something really bad will happen that somehow involves the Internet, and the school system may be liable.”
Filters that Do the Job Too Well
In fact concerns about Internet safety can lead to district policies that make it very difficult for classroom educators to fully integrate web tools and resources into their lesson plans. District technology directors may opt for a “safety first” approach in response to the concerns of superintendents and school boards – whom many IT leaders see as their primary clients.
In these instances, system firewalls and content filters are so tight or so unpredictable that teachers can’t be sure which websites and tools will be reachable – or when. And no teacher is going to integrate technology-infused lessons into the daily classroom experience when there’s a good chance they won’t come off.
As the national debate grows around the need to address 21st Century skills, some school districts are adopting or considering a “layered” approach that offers teachers higher levels of Internet access and then scales down access for high, middle and elementary students. This frequently requires a revamp of the existing technology infrastructure to allow for multiple password systems and layered filtering.
Creating a “Web Wading Pool”
Some districts are building “intranet” systems, which allow students and teachers to use a collection of social networking tools (blogs, wikis, podcasts, discussion boards) within a closed and relatively more secure Web-like environment.
It’s true that self-assured teachers can feel constrained in such an environment by the lack of access to the latest interactive software and the vast collaborative potential of the World Wide Web. But other less intrepid educators may be more willing to experiment with technology integration in a closed environment – what one teacher described to us as “the Web wading pool.” Smart districts, including Alabama’s Trussville City Schools, are looking at ways to offer teachers both Internet and intranet options.
Building Net Safety into the Curriculum
Perhaps the most common evolutionary change taking place in school districts is the move to increase training for both students and teachers on the responsible use of the Internet.
Some IT people may worry that teachers won’t have the tools or skills to keep things safe, according to one school district technology director we interviewed. He believes that well-designed Internet safety curriculum and training programs (iSafe, Web Wise Kids, and NetSmartz are examples) can help alleviate those concerns.
Teachers at Wrights Mill Elementary School in Auburn, Alabama, are integrating some of the iSafe curriculum ideas into their own program for students.
“We got very interested in the safety issue last year when we became excited about blogs and wikis and then discovered that all the sites we went to were blocked by our filter,” says Wrights Mill media teacher Jennifer Dempsey.
“Because of this, we started a dialogue with our IT people and some good lines of communication have been opened up. They have concerns about safety and liability, and we want to access the good stuff for our kids.”
Sending Students on “Web Quests” for Safety
The Wrights Mill teachers developed a webquest, “Safely Surfing Cyberspace,” aimed at third through fifth graders. The teachers grabbed their students’ attention with a dramatic opening to the activity:
The Committee Against Kids Using Computers (CAKUC) has determined that the Internet is too dangerous for children. They want to outlaw the use of computers for all children under the age of 12. Can you believe it?!
The safe-surfing project not only leads students through an analysis of Internet safety information gleaned from a variety of websites, it makes the learning “sticky” through hands-on activities in which students produce a PowerPoint (3rd), a podcast (4th) or a movie (5th). Students also take a test at the PBS Kids website that can earn them an “Internet driver’s license.”
Dempsey says her principal and faculty believed that “by bringing our students through a safety program, we could show our district that we deserve access to the great (web tools) that are out there, and at the same time we could give students important skills they need to stay safe online.”
“The kids know so much more about the Web than we think they do,” Dempsey says. “And the Web is here to stay. It’s my hope that responsible, safe online behavior can become so ingrained in the elementary school that the issues of cyberbullying and Web predators in the upper grades eventually become non-issues.”
Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach has been an elementary teacher and school- and district-based technology coach. She now helps teachers in the U.S. and abroad refocus their teaching around 21st century skills (read her blog at http://21stcenturylearning.typepad.com/blog/).
John Norton is an education writer and developer of virtual learning communities for educators, including www.middleweb.com. He and Nussbaum-Beach are co-authors of book on digital technologies and inquiry-based learning that will be published by Eye on Education in 2008.
Technology can be a boon for struggling readers and students with different learning styles. Here’s a look at how computers are helping one Virginia third grader, and how her family is preparing for the wired world ahead.
Caroline, a third grader in Alexandria, Virginia, struggles with reading comprehension and spelling. Although she’s strong in other subjects, she reads below grade level, shows signs of dyslexia, and her handwriting skills lag behind those of her classmates.
At the end of second grade, during a meeting to set Caroline’s Individual Education Plan (IEP)-which outlines the learning goals and approach for students who receive special services-one of her teachers suggested that she start using a computer to improve her reading comprehension, spelling and grammar.
“She turned to us and said, ‘Since she’s learning typing next year, let’s incorporate that into the IEP next year,’” says Marie. “We had no idea that third graders would start to learn typing.”
Typing class is part of the school district’s formal technology integration plan, designed to introduce students to the technology they will likely need as adults-and it set Caroline and her family on their own version of a technology integration plan.
Since starting third grade, Caroline has been using Microsoft Word to do her homework. She uses it with the auto-correction function turned off, so misspelled words are highlighted and underlined, but not automatically fixed. When she finishes a thought or paragraph, she can go back and look at the words she misspelled, and focus on those.
She practices for spelling tests by typing in her spelling words and then checking to see which are underlined with the familiar red squiggle indicating a misspelling.
“I think it’s a good idea, partly because she learns in a visual fashion; if she can see it or hear it, it’s mentally digestible, especially with abstract concepts like decoding words. Having it represented on a screen will speed up the process,” says Edward, who knows his daughter’s struggles first-hand: he labored for years with what he suspects is undiagnosed dyslexia.
Like many students, Caroline’s reading delays have taken a toll on her confidence. “She constantly compares herself with her friends and finds herself lacking, saying things like, ‘Amanda’s the smartest girl in class because she can read a chapter book.’ She never compares herself to anyone in math class, never worries about science or social studies or math because she’s succeeding in them,” says Marie.
Marie and Edward think that e-mail-the next stop on their technology journey-could help. “We’re looking for more opportunities to have a clear incentive to read, and a message from a friend or her grandparents seems like a good reward for doing the work,” says Edward.
Safety Considerations
Now that they’ve opened the door to computers and technology, Caroline’s parents are exploring ways to help her stay safer online. They’ve already begun talking about whether she should have her own email address, rather than use her Mom’s-she’s not pushing for her own yet, because few of her friends have email accounts-and whether to tell her that they’ll read her messages.
For now, Caroline doesn’t have a wireless phone, but when she reaches middle school, they may get her one so they can coordinate rides to and from school and activities. They’re already looking into renewing their plan as a family plan, to add a line for Caroline.
In fact, Edward and Marie are beginning to have a whole series of discussions about keeping Caroline safer online. They let us sit in on one of their talks-see the accompanying conversation [if on diff. page, please note].
Preparing for the Future: Edward and Marie’s Checklist [Can be in a box]
- Slowly introduce new technologies to their children, and help familiarize them with the uses and risks
- Talk with other parents about tech safety
- Look into Web and email filters, and discuss each other’s philosophies about what and how to monitor online activities
- Check out child-friendly search engines, such as KidsClick, a site used by librarians
- Set up the free key logger program to track computer activity and record IMs
- Keep the computer in the living room, where it’s visible, laptops are off limits to the kids
- Wireless phones are like “walking computers”-explore family plans and phone feature controls, so that’s ready to go when Caroline needs a phone
- Investigate supplemental parental control services for wireless phones, such as DisneyMobile, RADAR: Your Kids’ Mobile Watchdog, or Verizon’s Chaperone Service, to name just a few; these typically cost $10 a month and can limit and track activity
*To respect their daughter’s privacy, they asked to use only their middle names.
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How Much, and How Soon? A Parents’ Discussion
Edward and Marie let us sit in as they discussed their technology safety plan and approach as their third grader, Caroline, begins to use computers.
Marie: We should sit down with Caroline and teach her about search engines and how to do safer searches. We’ve also got to bookmark the sites she uses so she can go there without hitting any strange sites. And we need filtering software. Wow. She’s growing up fast.
Edward: There are points of vulnerability in things I never even dreamt of, like the X Box and PlayStation where you have the ability to chat with other people, and the small hand-held gaming devices like GameBoy that have WiFi and texting built in. Adults have used those to approach kids, which blew my mind. I never would have thought of that. How do you begin to get a handle on that without taking it away?
Marie: We’ve got to find a balance between liberty and control. No one thing is going to be enough; we need a combination of approaches and it’s still not going to be foolproof.
Edward: With e-mail, one option is to create a sub-account and actually set it to upload her emails on our Outlook, so if there’s any activity it’ll show up on our Outlook. Do we tell her that it’s showing up on our e-mail accounts or do we keep it quiet? Marie’s in the camp of “tell her.”
Marie: I don’t want to start with deception, she’s going to rebel against us sometime…
Edward: So we could set up the account but not the auto-preview to us, and if we have suspicions, we activate that.
Marie: And she can have her own password but if she changes it without telling us, the account gets shut down. We’ll check it, probably daily, and if we see anything that seems uncomfortable or deceptive, we’ll address it.
Edward: For IM and the Web, I found a keystroke logger software for parents who want to make sure their kids aren’t IMing in inappropriate ways. It’s a background stealth program that saves IMs as a text file and sends it to you. That’s more extreme, but if we’re getting worried about things outside email, it’s an option. Trust but verify.
Marie: It’s one of these things where, e-mail: no problem, that’s easy to control, but she’s going to find out about IM, Facebook all these things. So do I open the door slowly so she sees it and gets comfortable and builds up a relationship of trust with me, or pretend it doesn’t exist?
Edward: Since we have WiFi at home, we can run the key logger program on the family computer and have it send data to another computer-that way, we can log on from wherever and check the files, even from the office.
Marie: I have no problem with the keystroke logger running and not telling the kids, but I do have a problem with uploading her email to ours.
Edward: Yeah, I see the difference there, but I think we need to install the keystroke program. I’ll show you how to log on remotely.
Marie: (laughs) So I can find out where you’re surfing now too!
Edward: (laughs) Prepare to be very bored.
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“I have encountered several students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) that grant the student the right to use a word processing program for their writing assignments. This is an accommodation that can help address issues such as handwriting legibility, speed of writing, or other fine motor skill deficits.
I have two classroom computers (both about 10 years old), and my students frequently ask to use the computers to type papers, check email, surf or play games. For students who have limited motivation to complete class assignments, the computer can be good reward for completing assignments quickly and thoroughly.
Any time a student requests permission to use a computer, we specifically discuss the task they intend to complete. This makes it easier for me to monitor their safety, as I can walk by them and see if the content on the monitor reflects this stated purpose.”
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John Staubitz is a special education teacher in Santa Monica California, who teaches a “Special Day Class” for students with emotional or behavioral disorders. He has worked with students in grades 3 through 12.
Edward and Marie let us sit in as they discussed their technology safety plan and approach as their third grader, Caroline, begins to use computers.
Marie: We should sit down with Caroline and teach her about search engines and how to do safer searches. We’ve also got to bookmark the sites she uses so she can go there without hitting any strange sites. And we need filtering software. Wow. She’s growing up fast.
Edward: There are points of vulnerability in things I never even dreamed of, like the X Box and PlayStation where you have the ability to chat with other people, and the small hand-held gaming devices like GameBoy that have WiFi and texting built in. Adults have used those to approach kids, which blew my mind. I never would have thought of that. How do you begin to get a handle on that without taking it away?
Marie: We’ve got to find a balance between liberty and control. No one thing is going to be enough; we need a combination of approaches and it’s still not going to be foolproof.
Edward: With e-mail, one option is to create a sub-account and actually set it to upload her emails on our Outlook, so if there’s any activity it’ll show up on our Outlook. Do we tell her that it’s showing up on our e-mail accounts or do we keep it quiet? Marie’s in the camp of “tell her.”
Marie: I don’t want to start with deception. She’s going to rebel against us sometime…
Edward: So we could set up the account but not the auto-preview to us, and if we have suspicions, we activate that.
Marie: And she can have her own password but if she changes it without telling us, the account gets shut down. We’ll check it, probably daily, and if we see anything that seems uncomfortable or deceptive, we’ll address it.
Edward: For IM and the Web, I found a keystroke logger software for parents who want to make sure their kids aren’t IMing in inappropriate ways. It’s a background stealth program that saves IMs as a text file and sends it to you. That’s more extreme, but if we’re getting worried about things outside email, it’s an option. Trust but verify.
Marie: It’s one of these things where, e-mail: no problem, that’s easy to control, but she’s going to find out about IM, Facebook all these things. So do I open the door slowly so she sees it and gets comfortable and builds up a relationship of trust with me, or pretend it doesn’t exist?
Edward: Since we have WiFi at home, we can run the key logger program on the family computer and have it send data to another computer—that way, we can log on from wherever and check the files, even from the office.
Marie: I have no problem with the keystroke logger running and not telling the kids, but I do have a problem with uploading her email to ours.
Edward: Yeah, I see the difference there, but I think we need to install the keystroke program. I’ll show you how to log on remotely.
Marie: (laughs) So I can find out where you’re surfing now too!
Edward: (laughs) Prepare to be very bored.
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Related Article:
Technology for Learning: A Family’s Journey Begins with a Single Red Squiggle
by Kelli Kennison, parent and professional health outreach coordinator, Columbia, South Carolina
Kelli Kennison, Lisea’s Mom, talks about how her family dealt with some of the issues this month’s Parents’ Corner writers, Edward and Marie, are facing.
We started Lisea on the computer at a young age, with email and restricted access, and we’ve talked with her about safety. Gradually, she has earned additional privileges and access as she continues to make good decisions and seems to be safe. We’ve talked to her about the fact that she doesn’t necessarily know who she’s talking to; her answers demonstrated that she was careful.
We try to get familiar with the technology ourselves, so we can provide proper oversight to our daughter. (See the specific recommendations, below.)
Talking with other parents helps too. I’ve noticed that girls’ parents seem more concerned about who their children might meet online, while with boys, the concern seems more about going to sites with pornography. Bullying online cuts across both.
I’ve also talked with some teachers who were concerned about the language or views being expressed online. I don’t know how many parents go on MySpace and look around, but we all should.
A Text-Based Scare
We had a situation last year. I got a couple of strange texts in the middle of the day from Lisea. The first was: Please come get me from school after my math class.
I thought, “Hmm, does she just need some extra sleep?” But the next was: Please come get me!
I texted her back and asked why. She responded that there was a gun at school. So then I was flying to the school. It turns out there was no gun, but they found a bullet in the boys’ bathroom. The kids were texting each other—this was not long after the Virginia Tech shooting—and the story changed as it went around.
That gave me the indication that they are probably texting at school, more than we know.
The reality is that kids are connected to each other pretty much all the time. I think our job as parents is to accept that, and set limits that we think are reasonable.
Kelli’s Recommendations
I’ve found that where possible, it’s a lot easier to start with stricter rules than to impose rules later on.
Wireless Phone
- My wireless provider has a “smart limits” parental program, so I can limit the minutes, number of texts, and even who she can call or text at certain times of night (only her parents and grandparents on school nights). It’s automatic, so I don’t have to ask, there’s no discussion—that reduces a lot of conflict.
- Be sure to block international calling, and check your text limits. These can be costly.
- I have tried to help Lisea learn to be a more responsible consumer by having her call and ask about charges that show up on the bill and deal with problems related to the phone.
Internet
- I use the parental controls from my Internet provider, which suggests age-appropriate limits for usage, email, chatting, IMing etc.
- Even with these controls, Lisea could access inappropriate sites—which means it is really good to continually monitor usage when kids are very young. I also get a report of the sites she’s visited.
- The time limit controls are very useful. Using that means I don’t have to continually ask her to get off; she is logged off at the end of her time limit (one hour on school nights). This can save a lot of fights!
