District Administration - June 2010 - (Page 57)

Help Teach Cybersafety Paraprofessional Tanya Lauderdale is one of the educators that teaches Internet safety skills to elementary students in the library media center of Churchland Primary and Intermediate School in the Portsmouth (Va.) Public Schools. Stay Safe Online National Cyber Security Alliance Free The NCSA has compiled K12 resources from around the Web and organized them according to its “three pillars” philosophy of teaching Internet literacy: cybersecurity, which focuses on avoiding spam and viruses; cybersafety, or teaching students how to avoid online predators; and cyberethics, or teaching appropriate and respectful behavior and the consequences of cyberbullying. Resources include links to games, quizzes, videos, professional development tutorials and more. www.staysafeonline.org Garﬁeld, as well as educator tools including a learning management platform for assessing progress at the student, school or district levels, and teaching strategies and techniques for implementing each lesson. www.inﬁnitelearninglab.org trainers, as well as a similar program to train students as i-Mentors, who lead cybersafety discussions and activities with their peers. isafe.org WiredSafety.org WiredSafety Free Netsmartz iSAFE Education i-SAFE Pricing varies National Center for Missing & Exploited Children Free A collection of free resources produced by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Netsmartz provides a variety of free educator materials. They include PowerPoint presentations with videos, statistics and expert advice tailored for a primary or secondary student audience, as well as grade-speciﬁc online games, activities and lesson plans for integration in classroom discussions. www.netsmartz.org The i-SAFE foundation offers districts a comprehensive curriculum of online lessons available on a subscription basis that emphasize cooperative student learning activities about avoiding dangerous, inappropriate or unlawful online activities. The organization also offers a professional development program, with workshops available either online or in person, that certiﬁes teachers as district i-SAFE curriculum This national volunteer organization has created a database of cybersafety resources focused on developing critical thinking skills concerning Internet use, and intended to be easily integrated into an information technology literacy curriculum by teachers or librarians. They include free Flash videos, PowerPoint presentations and classroom lessons to help teachers discuss topics such as spam, viruses, cyberbullying, discerning the validity of Internet information, and the dangers of posting personal information online. www.wiredsafety.org/educators.html -Kurt Eisele-Dyrli teenagers and kids to understand digital citizenship and to become advocates for good citizenship,” Davis adds. For teachers to be truly eﬀective in discussing Internet safety and security, they need to get ﬁrsthand experience using social media Web sites, such as Facebook or MySpace, says Will Richardson, co-founder of Powerful Learning Practice, a technologyoriented professional development company. Many teachers have heard of those sites but have never worked with them. “I don’t know how teachers can counsel kids eﬀectively without some practical experience to fall back on,” he says. www.DistrictAdministration.com Beyond Denial Not all districts are embracing Web 2.0 technologies. Some districts still ban cell phones and block students from using social networking sites on campus. Some districts also mistakenly believe that if students can’t use those technologies on campus, then teachers don’t have to teach about their risks and problems, Kaiser says. Even if social networking sites are blocked on campus, districts still must prepare students for using the sites safely when they are not in school, he says. “If you are really concerned about the students using the Internet safely and se- curely, then you have to worry about any network” that they use outside the classroom, Kaiser says. And students grow up. “ ese are issues that will not only serve students well by protecting themselves and their friends and the computer networks they connect to,” Kaiser concludes, “but it will also serve them when they get out of school and they start looking for work.” DA www.DistrictAdministration.com Fear of the Internet still strangles learning. Kevin Butler is a contributing writer for D A. June 2010 57 http://www.staysafeonline.org http://WiredSafety.org http://isafe.org http://www.infinitelearninglab.org http://www.wiredsafety.org/educators.html http://www.netsmartz.org http://www.DistrictAdministration.com http://www.DistrictAdministration.com

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - June 2010

District Administration - June 2010
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Sustainability
Conversations
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Innovative Leaders Take the Phone and Run
A New Dawn in the Sunshine State
The Die-Hard Communicator
Cybersafety in the Classroom
Persuading Teachers to Go Rural
Product Focus
Research Corner
Professional Opinion

District Administration - June 2010