After reading the article, "Teaching Children Cyber Security and Ethics" by the Cyber Security Industry Alliance, I am left with questions and a sense of frustration. The Alliance accurately identifies the problems we face in our efforts, or lack thereof, to educate children about cyber safety. The one that causes the most frustration in me is, of course, the one that questions whose responsibility it is to teach children about cyber safety. I know that many teachers do the best they can, with the limited resources they have, to teach kids about Internet safety. However, the parents fall short! We need the parents to get on board and support our efforts to educate their children. Many, many of them are in denial and feel that their kids (especially the teenagers) know how to handle themselves on the Web. Or, they think that the schools should educate their children about this and that absolves them of any responsibility. That's wrong; many of them need a serious wake up call!
Another thing that bothers me, even though I know that there is no way around it, is the idea that we have to entertain children in order to get their full attention and educate them about this very serious issue. As pointed out in the article, we are competing with the video games, and I will add, social networking sites for their attention. It's a shame that they will not listen to our cries for them to be careful until we make the message attractive.
In the article, the Alliance identifies numerous resources for teachers, parents, and students. Several questions came to mind as I read these. Why it is so hard to get this information out to schools? Why don't we see flyers, phamplets, and brochures on this issue in the schools? Why doesn't the DOE make this available to us now? What are we waiting on to spread the word? If the resources are out there, why are they not getting to us? I didn't know that many of these resources existed and so I know that other teachers and parents do not know about them either. Why don't we have a national television campaign to get the word out? Are we ever really going to get the message out?
How much can one media specialist in a school with over 1300 children do? I guess it will have to be a lot!
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3 comments:
Hi AnnMarie!! I totally agree that our job can seem overwhelming at times. It seems impossible to cover all of this information but all we can do is take it one day at a time. I also feel that teachers do not recognize cyberbullying as a problem and we need to inform them of this problem and come up with consequences for these children who are cyberbullies. Thanks for all the useful information and try to enjoy what is left of our summer.
I share your feelings, it is frustrating to know more can be done, but is not.
My school had a serious issue last year and again a few years before that. One of our students were almost kidnapped and one was severely harassed.
We need to teach internet safety in the school since we allow them to use the internet in the schools.
We can not depend on the parents to help, because it seems like they are unaware, or have no control. You choose.
But, I definitely know something needs to be done.
I share your feelings, it is frustrating to know more can be done, but is not.
My school had a serious issue last year and again a few years before that. One of our students were almost kidnapped and one was severely harassed.
We need to teach internet safety in the school since we allow them to use the internet in the schools.
We can not depend on the parents to help, because it seems like they are unaware, or have no control. You choose.
But, I definitely know something needs to be done.
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