Blogging Theme #2

Hey everyone! I just checked out the cool cat teacher blog, and read and checked it out. I read a particularly interesting article entitled 11 Steps to online parental supervision of your child. This went through many steps that you as a teacher or a parent can do to ensure that your child is not abusing the internet. I found that this article closely goes with the Blogging theme #1 that has to do with online safety. So, with this blog one could say i am killing one bird with two stones.
I found it very interesting to read some of these steps to ensure that your child is safe on the internet. Some I thought were kind of far fetched and illogical. I strongly believe that it is imperative that a parent knows what their child is doing on the internet, but a parent also has to have some trust with their children. From my personal experiences, my mom always was checking what we were up to on the internet. She would come into the computer room when we were on just to talk about the importance of not talking to strangers, not giving out personal information, etc. I remember getting super annoyed with it simply because common sense was enough to tell me not to do these things. Sometimes i think we underestimate the common sense of a child. Children know not to do a lot of these things. Sure, some children are exceptions but do we really need to do this to every child, hover behind them watching every move they make on the internet when all they truly want to do is visit a good website? I do however believe that there is a need for some filteration. Things like myspace or even hi5 are great, but i do often wonder the valadity of it. I have a hi5 account and have recieved many "invitations" to be peoples friends. These people are usually men talking about how "beautiful" you are or somethign bizarre like that. Children know not to accept this kind of stuff! Hi5 can be good as long as you can only allow YOUR friends to view it, it can be a great place to see pictures, blog and do other fun stuff.
Overall, i think the key to this article pertaining to online safety is to communicate with your children. Give them some constraints on the computer and make sure they are aware of some of the dangers involved in online safety. If a parent sets up a positive communication in the begginning of a childs internet experiences it will be easier to help them understand later.

catch ya on the flipside