Computers

Dear Parents and Students,

I would like to congratulate our 8^th grade class on a wonderful school year. You will be sadly missed in the computer lab.

I hope everyone has a great summer. Here is some helpful information to assist you in having a safe and happy summer vacation.

INTERNET SAFETY TIPS

What Can You Do To Minimize The Chances Of An On-line Exploiter Victimizing Your Child?

§  Communicate, and talk to your child about victimization and potential on-line danger.

§  Spend time with your children on-line. Have them teach you about their favorite on-line destinations.

§  Keep the computer in a common room in the house, not in your child's bedroom. It is much more difficult for a computer offender to communicate with a child when the computer screen is visible to a parent or another member of the household.

§  Utilize parental controls provided by your service provider and/or blocking software. While electronic chat can be a great place for children to make new friends and discuss various topics of interest, it is also prowled by compute offenders. Use of chat rooms, in particular, should be heavily monitored. While parents should utilize these mechanisms, they should not totally rely on them.

§  Always maintain access to your child's on-line account and randomly check his/her e-mail. Be aware that your child could be contacted through the U.S. Mail. Be up front with your child about your access and reasons why.

§  Teach your child the responsible use of the resources on-line. There is much more to the on-line experience than chat rooms.

§  Find out what computer safeguards are utilized by your child's school, the public library, and at the homes of your child's friends. These are all places, outside your normal supervision, where your child could encounter an on-line predator.

§  Instruct your children:

§  to never arrange a face-to-face meeting with someone they met on- line;

§  to never upload (post) pictures of themselves onto the Internet or on-line service to people they do not personally know;

§  to never give out identifying information such as their name, home address, school name, or telephone number;

§  to never download pictures from an unknown source, to never respond to messages or bulletin board postings that are inappropriate.

§  that whatever they are told on-line may or may not be true.

WHAT IS A DIGITAL FOOTPRINT

Your Digital Footprint(Please remember what you put online is there FOREVER)

On the Internet a digital footprint is the word used to describe the trail, traces or "footprints" that people leave online. This is information transmitted online, such as forum registration, e-mails and attachments, uploading videos or digital images and any other form of transmission of information — ALL of which leaves traces of personal information about yourself available to others online.

To calculate your digital footprint you open the link below and download a digital footprint calculator:

http://www.emc.com/digital_universe/downloads/web/personal-ticker.htm

How to Stop Bullying on Facebook

By R.J. Bowman, eHow Contributing Writer

Parents, please keep in mind, when a person posts something on facebook, and the person erases it, the comment is not totally erased since it can be seen on other friend’s accounts.

 What's This?

Social websites like Facebook have made it possible for people all over the world to connect and stay in touch easily. However, kids bullying other kids on Facebook have become a problem. It's not as easy to protect your children as it once was, but there are safeguards you can use to protect your children from bullying on Facebook.

Instructions

1.   Step 1

Create a Facebook account for yourself. If you want to protect your child on Facebook, you must be on the site yourself.

2.   Step 2

Require your child to be your Facebook friend. This allows you to see all activity on her page. You can see who she is friends with and the types of comments are being left for her. This will nip a lot of bullying on Facebook right away. Kids are generally smart enough not to leave comments that parents are going to read.

3.   Step 3

Insist on knowing your child's password for Facebook and make sure he understands that you will use it to sign into his account on occasion. This is necessary to check for bullying by private message. While most activity on Facebook is viewable by all your friends, private messages are not.

4.   Step 4

Search for bullying groups on Facebook. Type in "groups" in the search box at the top of the Facebook homepage. That takes you to the Groups homepage. From there you can search the groups for your child's full name. It has become a trend on Facebook for kids to set up "I Hate So-and-So" groups that are used to bully a child.

5.   Step 5

Immediately report any groups or messages that appear to be bullying your child on Facebook. Click on the group name and then scroll down to the bottom of the screen. Click on the "Report Group" icon.

6.   Step 6

Report a single person's bad behavior by clicking on "Report This Person" on that person's profile screen. Since you must be friends to see the person's profile page, you must be signed into your child's account to do this. But don't worry; the reporting is done anonymously, and no one will ever know your child was the one to report

Teasing & Bullying
What to Do if Your Child Is Bullied: How to Deal.
www.ParentsConnect.com/Bullying

Tips & Warnings

• Children under the age of 13 are not allowed to have a Facebook account. Do not allow your child to lie about her age to gain access; it violates the terms of use.