The digital age is well under-way, with educators scampering to incorporate 21st Century Skills, tools, pedagogies, and methodologies into their curriculum. The age of technology is here, and it is advancing at an exponentially fast rate. The opportunities for using technologies are not only available to students and teachers at school, but also at home, on the bus, at the park or library, even in the back seat of the car. The world is a technological playground, available anywhere, at anytime, and for anyone. “In 2000, ‘place the computer in a central area of the house’ was good advice. But that was before Netbooks, tablets, web-enabled smart phones, Wi-Fi and wide-area wireless networks,” records the Online Safety and Technology Working Group (OSTWG p. 11, 2010). Due to advances, teachers and parents are finding it harder to monitor the behaviors of children, making the importance of good digital citizenship skills imperative. The government is struggling to keep laws and enforcement agencies current and reflective of the advancing technologies. Parents and educators strive to educate and protect the children in their care. Online resources supporting digital citizenship are sparse, and difficult to find.
In the report by OSTWG, examples of Internet safety included: cyberbullying, inappropriate content, predation, sexting, and geolocation technologies. (2010). Their research reinforced courteous and respectful behaviors as being deterrents to at risk activities, and suggested taking into account that access points are standard in many of today’s digital devices.
OSTWG Subcommittee on Internet Safety Education Recommendations:
Keep up with the youth-risk and social-media research, and create a web-based clearinghouse that makes this research accessible to all involved with online safety education at local, state, and federal levels.
- Coordinate Federal Government educational efforts.
- Provide targeted online-safety messaging and treatment.
- Avoid scare tactics and promote the social-norms approach to risk prevention.
- Promote digital citizenship in pre-K-12 education as a national priority.
- Promote instruction in digital media literacy and computer security in pre-K-12 education nationwide.
- Create a Digital Literacy Corps for schools and communities nationwide.
- Make evaluation a component of all federal and federally funded online safety education programs (evaluation involving risk-prevention expertise).
- Establish industry best practices.
- Encourage full, safe use of digital media in schools’ regular instruction and professional development in their use as a high priority for educators nationwide.
- Respect young people’s expertise and get them involved in risk-prevention education.
(OSTWG, p. 14, 2010).
The subcommittee of parental controls and child protection suggested a “layered” approach to online safety, encouraging “educational strategies, parental involvement, and other approaches to guide and mentor children”. (OSTWG 2010).
OSTWG Subcommittee On Parental Controls & Child Protection Technology Recommendations:
- Engage in ongoing awareness-building efforts.
- Promote greater transparency for parents as to what sort of content and information will be accessible and recorded with a given product when their children are online.
- Make parental empowerment technologies and options possible into product development whenever possible.
- Develop a common set of terms, agreed upon by the industry, across similar technologies.
- Promote community reporting and policing on sites that host user-generated content.
(OSTWG, p. 15, 2010).
Risks children face continue to multiply; including accessing harmful websites, distracted driving, inappropriate advertising, online pornography, hate sites, even identity theft. (OSTWG 2010). A Harvard task force with the mission of identifying online-safety tools, and online identity-authentication technologies was established. The Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF) had two main findings - that “sexual predation on minors by adults, both online and offline, remains a concern” but that “bullying and harassment, most often by peers, are the most frequent threats that minors face, both online and offline”. (ISTTF 2008). Therefore it was determined that all educators, parents, and individuals charged with the safety and well-being of children, need to continuously keep current, ask and answer the questions of online safety and citizenship based on the educated knowledge of current technologies. (OSTWG 2010). According to the OSTWG, “the best solutions for promoting child safety, security, and privacy online must be the result of an ongoing negotiation involving all stakeholders: providers of services and devices, parents, schools, government, advocates, healthcare professionals, law enforcement, legislators, and children themselves. All have a role and responsibility in maximizing child safety online.” (p. 13, 2010).
References:
Online Safety and Technology Working Group. (2010, June 4). National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Retrieved February 22, 2011, from http://www.ntia.doc.gov/advisory/onlinesafety/
“Enhancing Child Safety & Online Technologies: Final Report of the Internet Safety Technical Task Force to the Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking of State Arrorneys General of the United States,” the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, December 31, 2008 (http://cyber.law.harvard.edu?sites/cyber.law.harvard.edu/files;ISTTF_Final_Report-Executive_Summary.pdf
No comments:
Post a Comment