SafeKids.com

Dave Taylor (Source: AskDaveTaylor.com)

Guest post

by Dave Taylor

It’s something that I hear from teens all the time, the refrain that “it’s cool, I can just delete it if it’s a problem” when we’re talking about online safety, privacy and the risk associated with everything that’s posted online. They assure me that those pictures on Facebook, the awkward photo from the party last Saturday night, the angry Tweet, none of them are permanent so it’s no big deal.

Unfortunately, they’re wrong. Continue reading →

A survey conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society has mostly good news about how teens approach privacy issues on social-networking services. While “teens are sharing more information about themselves on social media sites than they did in the past,” according to the study, “few teens embrace a fully public approach to social media,” but “take an array of steps to restrict and prune their profiles.”

Read the entire post and listen to a recorded interview with Pew’s Amanda Lehnart over at CNET.

Book is based on based on the true-life story of Alter Wiener, a teen survivor of five prison labor camps during WWII (illustration (c) 2013 by Craig Orback)

Children’s book author Trudy Ludwig, who specializes in books “that explore the colorful and sometimes confusing world of children’s social interactions,” is working on an extraordinary project that deserves widespread support.

She’s collaborating with illustrator Craig Orback on a 32-page picture book titled Gifts from the Enemy, based on the true-life story of Alter Wiener, a teen survivor of five prison labor camps during WWII and the author of From a Name to a Number. Wiener has authorized the project. Continue reading →

A forensics experts has shown how he can undelete Snapchat photos

I recently wrote about Snapchat, the popular photo sharing app that allows users to share photos that will self-destruct from between 1 and 10 seconds after they’re viewed.  As I said in that story, there are many reasons people use Android and Apple iOS app and that, despite worries about sexting, most kids are using the app in ways that parents would probably approve of.

But, it’s also important for kids and adults to realize that there’s no such thing content that absolutely disappears forever. Anything that can be digitized can be copied and stored and, as a forensics expert recently demonstrated, with the right tools, Snapchat photos, like PC files, can be undeleted.

After transfering data to a PC, forensics examiner Richard Hickman can access deleted photos from a “received image” folder (screen shot from KSL TV)

Continue reading →

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children grateful for recovery of 3 missing women

David Finkelhor

by Larry Magid

David Finkelhor, the director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire and a researcher for the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children, has written an incredibly useful article for the Washington Post, debunking 5 myths about missing children:

1. Most missing children have been abducted by strangers.

2. More and more children are going missing.

3. The Internet has made kidnapping easier.

4. Prevention lies in teaching children to avoid strangers.

5. The main goal should be to reunite children with their families.

Myth busting can save lives and avoid panic

Debunking myths is important because it helps make children safer. For example, panicking over stranger abduction – as horrific as that is — does nothing to help the vast majority of missing children who are missing for other reasons such as running away or being taken by a non-custodial parent. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t do all we can to prevent and find the one-hundredth of 1 percent of missing children who are “taken by strangers or slight acquaintances,” but we must also focus on all of the other children who are away from home for other reasons.

It’s also important to know that there is not an increase in the number of missing children cases or other crimes against both children and adults. Finkelhor points to FBI statistics “showing fewer missing persons of all ages — down 31 percent between 1997 and 2011.” He also wrote that “The numbers of homicides, sexual assaults and almost all other crimes against children have been dropping, too.”

Internet not increasing risk

And, as several studies have shown, the Internet does not increase a child’s risk of being abducted. If anything, argues Finkelhor, “it may have contributed to the decline in missing children,” because it has changed the way children take risks.  Socializing and experimenting online, said Finkelhor, is likely safer than “going to the unchaperoned open house or the keg party at the quarry.”

Most strangers are not “dangerous” but some acquaintances are

I’m very glad Finkelhor reminded people not to fall for the myth about “stranger danger.” While it is of course possible for a stranger to harm a child, the vast majority of children who are abducted, sexually molested or otherwise harmed by an adult are victimized by someone they know — often a family member or someone close to the family and sometimes by a trusted adult like a coach, clergy member or teacher. And strangers can be your friend. If a child is in trouble the best option is often to seek help from a stranger, perhaps a police officer but perhaps someone from the community.  Rather than fear strangers, Finkelhor says “We’d do much better to teach them the signs of people (strangers or not) who are behaving badly.”

For more about missing children check out this Key Facts page from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), including:

• More than 200,000 children were abducted by family members.
• More than 58,000 children were abducted by nonfamily members.
• An estimated 115 children were the victims of “stereotypical” kidnapping. These “stereotypical” kidnappings involved someone the child did not know or was an acquaintance. The child was held overnight, transported 50 miles or more, killed, ransomed or held with the intent to keep the child permanently.

If you have any information about a missing child call NCMEC at 800 THE LOST or visit the Cyber Tipline. You can also follow NCMEC on Twitter and visit NCMEC’s Facebook page.

Links:

Finkelhor’s Washington Post artitcle

Predator Panic Making a Comeback

Crimes Against Children Research Center

Net threat to minors less than feared

Disclosure: I’m a member of the board of directors of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children but do not speak on behalf of the organization

This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

By Larry Magid

We’re just a few weeks away from school letting out and — for lucky families — a chance to spend a bit of time together on vacation.

Summer also means lots of free time for children and teens — time that can be taken up in outdoor activities like sports or playing in the park, indoor activities like playing video games and going online, or hybrid activities such as hanging out with friends while, at the same time, using their mobile devices for texting, taking and sharing pictures, playing games and social networking. For many kids these days, the lines between being offline and being online are blurry. Continue reading →

Larry speaks with Connie Yowell, Director of Education at the MacArthur Foundation about Project:Connect

Coders, writers, teachers and others concerned about making the web a better place for kids gathered in New York on Thursday for Project:Connect, a hackathon dedicated to building tools to make the Net a better place for children, sponsored by Facebook, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Mozilla, and the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI),

Categories of projects:

• Social Tools for Social Good – Enabling people to create a culture of kindness and respect that enhances civic participation.
• Social Tools that Enable Control of Information – Helping people understand how to control their information, and manage privacy and security.
• Social Tools that Enable Literacy – Helping people build, access, and understand or make components of the Web.

Winners

Winners of Project:Connect (photo: Krisa Kobeski)

Social good category

• Helpster: A website that enables people to create a culture of kindness and respect that enhances civic participation. The site brings together a community of “needsters” (those who need help with projects, small and large), “helpsters” (volunteers who can make a difference) and nonprofits and charities.
• “DoGood.org” (not actual URL): A website that leverages pop culture to encourage youth to have a lasting relationship with causes that resonate the most with them.
• Cyberstoop: A hyper local community that connects teens who are looking for free WiFi with businesses that donate connectivity and technology (loaner laptops and iPads) by zip code and/or neighborhood.

Enable literacy category

• Congregate: A tool to build common ground one issue at a time. The technology prepares young people (age 13+) to participate in democracy while giving them tools to influence their own future. Users can vote on and discuss issues that matter to them most. 
  
• A collaborative storytelling app/website that enables literacy, helps teens build, understand, and create a community that inspires them and helps them grow. Their storytelling community shares their passion and cheers them on as they write together.

Control of information category

• That Could Be Your Sister: A movement driven by young people that nurtures young women and turns bystanders into a community of active supporters that help girls grow in a safe environment.
• Digital Milestones: An online community for parents and kids where users can find resources and engage with experts to help guide young people as they experience digital milestones like creating a digital footprint, data security, privacy, digital citizenship and more.

Members of “That could be your sister” project (photo: Larry Magid)

Click to listen to Larry’s 1-minute CBS News/CNET Tech Talk segment on Natick’s 1:1 program, including an interview with Natick High School principal Rose Bartucci

Natick High School students and staff in front of brand-new school building (Photo: Natick School District)

Natick, Massachusetts, a town of about 33,000 people situated about 30 miles west of Boston, has recently instituted a “one-to-one” laptop program, equipping each of its 8th through 12th graders with a MacBook laptop they can use at school and at home.

The program, which is being evaluated by researchers at Boston College, seems to be getting off to a good start, according to staff and students I spoke with when I visited the campus of Natick High School. This mostly middle-class district already has a low dropout rate and a high graduation rate but, according to high school principal Rose Bertucci, test scores have risen “and there is a lot more engagement with the students.” She said that students are retaining more information and that discipline problems are down.  She acknowledged that there are some challenges including “making sure they stay on task in class all the time.”

The laptops have filters that keep students away from sites deemed inappropriate. Currently the district blocks access to Facebook but does permit students to use Twitter and YouTube.  I visited a social studies class where the teacher was encouraging students to Tweet questions to students in other countries in an effort to begin an international dialog. Not everyone was pleased about the decision to block Facebook. I spoke with two students who felt that the school should allow Facebook access at least when the students are using their computers outside of class. Of course students with smartphones have unrestricted access to the Internet on their own devices using their carrier’s data networks unless their parents have equipped the phones with filters. High school students are permitted to use smartphones on campus, but not in class except during teacher authorized learning projects.

Natick also has a brand-new high school building that opened this year. It’s equipped with LCD screens throughout to inform students of campus events along with WiFi throughout the entire school. The school even has an incredibly well-equipped high-tech  fitness center with tools to measure pulse rate, blood pressure and progress along with a staff of fitness teachers to help students and staff develop lifelong fitness habits.

Several years ago, when I took my own kids around the country to visit colleges, I kept thinking that I want to go back to college.  But after spending time in Natick, I almost wish I could go back to high school. Almost.

Links

School district’s page on 1:1 laptop program

What does research say about one-to-one computing initiatives