Posts Tagged ‘kids’

Steven Hopper, an Education Administration Master’s student at the Iowa State University, put together a 2-minute inspirational video about the need to meet the demands of a new age in education:

As Steven notes, embracing technology in the classroom is about educating our kids to meet the needs of an evolving society. We touch on topics of eLearning and technology in education from time to time on the blog, but we don’t often sit back to think about how important it is that these changes happen in education. I hope you enjoy the video!

Via dangerously irrelevant

This week, British Columbia had its first ever Anti-Bullying Day. All across BC, people wore pink to stand up to bullying – both online and offline. 1 in 4 youth in British Columbia have been victims of cyberbullying and 1 in 5 and bullied others! 80% say people bully others online because it’s earlier to do. Read more here.

We’ve talked in the past about social networking, privacy and cyberbullying, with Facebook being sited often as a platform used by cyberbullies.

Today I stumbled across a video about how to configure your privacy settings on Facebook – a video teachers may wish to share with their students, or parents with their kids:

For resources on bullying for parents and teachers, check out the list available on the BC Ministry of Education.

Via SafeKids

A task force that was charged to assess technologies for protecting children from unwanted online contact has put together a report. The report indicates that no single approach is a guarantee or foolproof system to protect kids. Therefore, they encourage that parents and teachers continue with vital oversight of Internet usage.

The Internet Safety Technical Task Force (ISTTF) out of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society was created in February 2008 by the Attorneys General Multi-State Working Group on Social Networking and MySpace. After a year of study, the final report was presented to the 52 Attorneys General in December of 2008. The task force was made up of a group of 29 Internet businesses, non-profits, academics and tech companies.

The report found that the risks minors face online are not significantly different than those they face offline – though they are complex and multifaceted. Part of this conclusion was drawn from a lack of data about sexual predators using social networking sites. As they age, the report found that minors were contributing to some of the problems they face online.

Interesting conclusions from the study:

• Bullying and harassment – mostly by peers – are the most frequent threats both online and offline
• Unwanted exposure to pornography does occur online, but mostly to those seeking it out
• Social networking sites are not the most common space for solicitation and unwanted exposure to problematic content – though they are used by peer-to-peer cyberbullies
• Minors most at-risk online are those who engage in risky behaviors and have difficulties in other areas of their lives – psychological makeup and family dynamics predict risk better than use of certain technologies
• Almost all technologies present privacy and security issues
• Social networking sites have been aggressively pursuing technologies that promote safety for minors – innovation is promising

The report concludes that there are promising developments in technologies to protect kids online but that such technologies are not enough:

“Technology can play a helpful role, but there is no one technological solution or specific combination of technological solutions to the problem of online safety for minors. Instead, a combination of technologies, in concert with parental oversight, education, social services, law enforcement, and sound policies by social network sites and service providers may assist in addressing specific problems that minors face online.”

The task force set out a series of suggestions for the Internet community, the Attorneys General, to parents and more. They point out that more resources should be allocated to all the many-faceted stakeholders working to protect minors online.

See the report presented and debated in this video and download the final report here.

Via MSNBC

On November 17th, the One Laptop Per Child initiative will come to Amazon. The mission of OLPC is to make sure kids in the developing worlds are able to learn effectively on their own personal laptops, to that “they, their families and their communities can openly learn and learn about learning.”

In addition to making sure kids in developed countries have laptops, the OLPC Association focuses on designing, manufacturing and distributing laptops into the hands of children in lesser-developed countries. Of course, in order that the laptops can be used, the association focuses on getting government support to create programs so that children can not only own, but use, laptops.

The ability to support OLPC was previously restricted to the OLPC site – however, on November 17th, news has it that Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk will be participating in the Give 1 Get 1 program. Under this program, people can buy one of the XO laptops for themselves and donate the other to a child in a developing country – the starter price to give 1 and get 1 is just $199.

You can support the program as an individual or business, but you can also help in creating open source software and learning resources (info here). For future news, you can follow the One Laptop per Child initiative on Twitter or read the independent OLPCNews blog.

Children are increasingly becoming the targets of identity theft. Although the problem is not new, it is possible the issue is more common than was previously realized.

Children become targets by identity thieves for a number of reasons: the stolen Social Security Number can become associated with crimes, lines of credit, or for work purposes. Most people do not consider that their children are at risk for these crimes, so many go undetected for long periods of time. From 2005 – 2007, more than 34,000 reports of identity theft involving minors under age 18 were reported to the Federal Trade Commission.

With adults, identity fraud can usually be detected more quickly. Children, however, are not attempting to apply for loans or credit cards, and so don’t have that trigger situation to highlight the issues. Sadly, in about 50% of cases, the thief is someone known to the child.

Randy Waldron Jr., now 27, has spent the last 10 years trying to clean up his reputation after his father abused his Social Security Number to run up millions of dollars in debt.

Some tips to protect your child’s identity include:

• Shred all papers that contain Social Security Numbers
• Store Social Security cards in a safe place – don’t carry it
• Investigate if your child receives pre-approved credit applications
• Ask for a credit report for your child – there shouldn’t be one yet for minors, so if there is, it may be problematic
• Be wary when providing documentation to anyone that could be used for fraud

Via AP, AP ; Image: Microsoft Office Clipart / iStockphoto.com