Internet Safety Presentation

Friday I had the opportunity to give an Internet Safety Presentation at my old stomping grounds. It was great to see my jr/sr. high school students again and to spend time talking with them about how to keep safe online. I know that a lot of them are starting to use sites such as Facebook and Myspace, and I wanted to remind them about what they should and should not post on their sites.

I started by showing them the video on Internet Safety put together by students in Commack posted on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZHq4CQekTY). We then discussed "what was wrong with this picture," i.e. a ten year old girl having a computer in her room with internet access is just asking for trouble. We then talked about what is considered to be private information.

Next we talked about protecting their reputations online. I showed them a video on that very topic so that they would get a better understanding of how the internet search engines work and how once they post something they can't take it back. A little lesson on think before you post.(http://www.commoncraft.com/protecting-reputations-video)

I then took a look at their Facebook accounts (on the big screen) to show them what I could see, not being on their "friend" list. Some of them were surprised to see that I could see everything (along with millions of others using facebook). I showed them where and how to set their privacy settings and gave them a homework assignment (set your privacy to "friends only").

Our final "food for thought" video was Digital Dosier (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79IYZVYIVLA), to show them that even when they are in their mothers' wombs, digital information about them is being collected and stored and it continues throughout the rest of their lives until they die. It is their responsibility to manage what information is made public and to keep their online reputation, well, reputable.