Privacy Please

You know where they are going and where they have been any time, day or night. You know what they thought was funny and what really made them mad this week. You know which new band they like and you have even seen a picture of some of their favorite meals this week. Hardly a day passes when you don’t get to see a picture of the hilarious things their pets and kids have gotten into. It’s hard to believe you can know someone so well when you haven’t even seen this “friend” since college! Social networks like Facebook and Twitter make it easy to connect to people and make the world seem like a really small place. This new way of connecting comes with it’s own set of benefits and problems. Teaching our students to share safely becomes even more important as social networking becomes a part of many students’ social lives.

Plenty of parents and teachers post pictures, report run times, list restaurants they frequent, and announce travel plans, goals and stories. If we aren’t careful with our privacy settings, we might be letting the world know more than we intended. We also might be setting a poor example for our children and students, who are growing up in an ever-increasingly digital world. As parents and teachers, we need to set a good example of how to safely use these sites and we need to teach our students how to maintain their privacy while they stay socially connected online.

Many teachers are finding sites like Twitter and Facebook useful for conversation and collaboration in the classroom. Unfortunately, these sites are often blocked in schools for student safety. Educators and administrators who support access to these sites in schools argue that we have the responsibility of teaching students how to safely use social networking sites instead of discouraging their use altogether. If we ban the sites in school, many students will still access them at home without any instruction or support. By teaching students about Internet privacy and safety, we can help students avoid common mistakes that make social networking seem like such a slippery slope for young teenagers.

There are plenty of resources available to assist you with teaching your students the important safety and privacy concerns involved with posting information on the Internet. Joann’s featured Gateway lessons from Common Sense Media this week include creative ways to help you teach students about Internet privacy and safety. Please read her column (linked below and see all of the Common Sense Media resources catalogued on the Gateway.

Another link I recommend as you explore this topic is a comprehensive compilation of resources put together by fellow Twitter user Jerry Blumengarten (@cybraryman1), Cybrary Man's Educational Web Sites. He has many links to information, games, and activities related to online privacy and safety.

How can we help our students discover the long-term impact of things they post online? It is important for students to understand that some employers and colleges check out prospective students’ online profiles as part of the admission or hiring process. When talking to junior high and high school students, it’s a good idea to remind them of this and to teach them how to manage their “digital footprint.” One suggested activity is to allow students with social networking accounts to create a word cloud of status updates or tweets. (Try a free site like Wordle.) Students and teachers need to know that just about anything they post online can be found later, and a word cloud of posts can give them a good idea of what kind of online image they are creating for themselves. A good piece of advice I heard once is “Don’t post anything on the Internet that you wouldn’t want your Grandma to read.”

For activities and a better explanation of this topic, please check out Mr. Blumengarten’s digital footprint links. He also has a collection of cybersafety games to add a little fun to the topic. 

For more information on privacy and safety in social networking, read this article from cnet news about privacy and security on Facebook and Twitter.

Facebook also has a page dedicated to safety and a page for ideas about how to use Facebook in Education. You can find some good ideas and tips on these pages to safely and effectively integrate social networking into your curriculum. As always, remember to search The Gateway for more student privacy activities.