The PTA (Parent Teacher Association) of the US is joining forces with Facebook to teach schools. parents and children about online safety.

Together, the National PTA and Facebook will work together to develop a program that will offer information and support about such issues as cyberbullying, good online citizenship and internet security.

Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt  commented that the plan is not just to educate kids about being on Facebook, but about being online. “The sooner we can get instilling responsible behavior, the better.”

The PTA will reach out to local parent-teacher groups to promote the program, while Facebook plans to do the same on its site.

Anne Collier, co-director of Connectsafely.org, a forum about online safety issues, said the deal combining Facebook’s broad reach and the PTA’s relationship with schools and parents “makes a lot of sense. Citizenship online and offline needs to be a part of the child’s life,” she said. “It needs to be taught at school and at home — it’s not just a digital thing.”

Access the PTA’s official press release about the partnership here: http://www.pwrnewmedia.com/2010/pta_00610/index.html

Last year on the parental control blog we reported on the launch of “Click Clever, Click Safe”, part of a new government strategy to help protect children online.

As part of the campaign, e-safety lessons were to become a compulsory part of the curriculum for primary schools from next year.  We thought this was a great idea, as educating kids from a young age about the dangers of the internet is key to keeping them safe online.

However, these plans are now under review since the new government came into power last month. The Conservative party will be scrapping Labour’s plans for the primary curriculum, in their effort to make £359m of education cuts.

Cuts are due to be made to ICT subjects as well as personal, social and health education, citizenship and RE. Cuts on these will save £7m, in a move towards a more traditional exam system.

Combined with Michael Gove’s announcement regarding state schools now being able to apply for academy status,  these changes could potentially spell out dramatic differences in how children are taught about ICT in schools.

As academies are free from local authority control, this gives them the chance to run the school how they wish – including choosing what subjects are taught. Let’s hope that both the new government and schools with new-found academy status hold e-safety in high regard and continue to help educate children on how to protect themselves when surfing the web.

The US Online Safety and Technology Working Group has released the findings from its ‘Youth Safety on a Living Internet’  report.

The report found that cyberbullying is a bigger issue that perceived and can start as early as the first few years of primary school, stating that, “bullying and harassment, most often by peers, are the most frequent threats that minors face, both online and offline.”

Between 9 – 35% of young people report being victim to “electronic aggression.”

The research also looked at other risks such as, identity theft (children and teens are often targeted because of typically clean credit histories), obsessive use of technology and loss of reputation from posting things online that could be embarrassing later.

It states that teaching children civil, respectful behaviour online and offline is the key to fostering a safe Internet environment. It urges the government to promote nationwide education in digital citizenship and media literacy and specifically recommends that the government create a Web-based clearinghouse for youth-risk and social-media research.

It also recommends that “the government avoids scare tactics and promotes an approach to risk prevention based on social norms. Dangerous online behaviour mirrors unsafe offline behaviour and similar notions of etiquette and safety should apply.”

The reports concludes that parents, teachers, government agencies and other organisations should promote online citizenship and media-literacy education, actively encouraging the participation of children in the process.

CNN news reports that some young people from China are choosing to study in Hong Kong in order to escape their country’s strict internet filtering.

“We are a small elite who can afford freedom beyond China’s great firewall,” says “Li Cheng” from Shanghai. “In Shanghai, I use special software to access sites blacklisted by the government, like Twitter or the uncensored version of Google. “In Hong Kong, I am taught to integrate these tools in my research.”

In the past, students such as Li would have to travel to far-away countries to get around Beijing’s control of information. Now, they are taking advantage of Hong Kong’s special administrative status that allows for a “one country, two systems” rule until 2047. Hong Kong is nothing like mainland China in terms of its free flow of information, freedom of speech and multiparty political system.

Li Cheng said he considers himself very lucky to be studying in Hong Kong. “Free access to information is a need and a privilege,” he said.

More than 70% of the more than 1 million Chinese students abroad did not return home after graduation between 1978 and 2006, according to a report by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Aware of this brain drain, the Chinese government has recently introduced a plan to attract highly qualified students back to the mainland promising better living standards, including favourable access to medical care. But that hasn’t tempted Li Chang who, like many of his friends, wants to stay in Hong Kong. “I love my country, but I don’t want to give up on my right to access information,” he said.

Access the original article online at: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/06/03/hong.kong.students.google/index.html

Government to close school IT quango

It has been announced that Becta, the previous government’s education ICT advisory, is to be closed down. The decision has been made as part of new government cuts for 2010-2011.

Formerly known as the British Educational and Communications Technology Association, Becta was set up in 1988 to promote the effective use of ICT in education.
Becta says that it has saved the education system an average of about £28m per year. It also says it has achieved cost savings of £55m for educational institutions and providers including schools, local authorities and the skills sector in the past year alone.

The organisation was also seen as having played an important role in driving down the cost of computers to schools. In 2005 it produced a paper suggesting that schools could halve their IT bills by adopting open source software rather than Microsoft’s Windows and other applications. In 2008, it suggested that schools should adopt more open source software – which led to Microsoft dropping some of its costs for licensing software to schools.

Becta has been promoting Home Access, the former Labour government’s scheme to bridge the “digital divide” by ensuring all children have a computer at home. It has encouraged English secondary schools to integrate the online reports into virtual learning environments so parents can see what their children are doing in the classroom.
However, it has admitted that despite schools being kitted out with the latest technology, only one in five is using it effectively.

Personally, we don’t think that the loss of Becta will have any significant consequences and the £80m it’ll save by closing will hopefully be better spent elsewhere.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/may/24/becta-government-closure

Google rolls out encrypted Web search option

CNN discusses how Google has started to offer an encrypted option for Web searchers, with plans to roll it out for all of its services eventually.

People who want to use the more secure search option can type “https://www.google.com” into their browser, scrambling the connection so the words and phrases they search on, and the results that Google displays, will be protected from interception.

The beta service of the secure Web search option begins in the United States on Friday and will be rolled out over the next few days to users around the world, said Murali Viswanathan, a Google search product manager.

Friday’s announcement makes Google the first major search engine to offer this privacy-protective feature. AOL, Yahoo, and Microsoft currently do not.
“Some users will want the extra privacy and security this feature will offer,” Viswanathan said in an interview with CNET. “But it’s not going to be the default option, at this point. There’s a lot of work to be done before we get there.”

The encryption protects only data in transit between an individual’s browser and the Google search server. When people click on a search result and are directed to another Web site, they leave the encrypted channel.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/05/24/cnet.google.encrypted/index.html

Be careful what you tweet

The BBC reports on the perils of Twitter, as Derek Simpson, the joint general secretary of the Unite union has found himself in hot water after sending some indiscreet messages via the micro-blogging service.

Attending sensitive talks with British Airways bosses to try to prevent further strike action by the airline’s cabin crews, Mr Simpson used his Twitter account to give a running commentary on the proceedings.

Entries on his Twitter page, @dereksimpsonjgs, included “Arguments over the eight sacked workers,” and “Fear of more sackings to come”. Perhaps unsurprisingly, BA’s chief executive Willie Walsh – who was also at the meeting – was livid when he later discovered what had been going on.

“I was shocked and angry when I found out that Derek was doing that,” Mr Walsh told the BBC. “Sending out his version of events to the wider audience, that really did undermine my confidence in his desire to resolve this situation. It is a really serious issue.”

Mr Simpson subsequently used Twitter to offer to apologise to Mr Walsh, but the episode did little to help the already strained relations between the two sides.
Let this be a lesson to any of us who are thinking about Tweeting too much private information…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10145993.stm

InsideThe School.com has published an interesting article about school pupils using social networking sites. The piece outlines the growing use of smart phones for social networking, statistics on children’s use social networks and cyber bullying…

Social networking and cell phones are a closely tied. One-third of the nation’s secondary students have a smartphone that can browse the Web. When they’re on the ‘net, almost half of them are on a social networking site. (Harris Interactive, 2008)

When they’re on the computer, it’s likely they’re on a social media site, too. Ninety-two percent of kids socialize online and over half have made new friends online. Of those who have an online social life, just 1 in 4 are friending their parents. (Norton Online Living Report, 2009)

Despite friending their kids, parents have a tough time monitoring their children’s’ Internet use. Seven in 10 parents have Internet rules and their kids say they follow these rules 80 percent of the time. Most parents think it’s their responsibility to monitor their kids’ Internet use (90%) and 70 percent of them talk about online safety with their kids. But parents struggle with this (33%) because the Internet and other digital technologies weren’t around when they were kids.

We’ve all read the stories of cyberbullying and it is certainly a problem. About 30 percent of teens have reported being the victim of some kind of cyberbullying and about half have seen it online. Most of the cyberbullies knew their targets personally (84%), but just one in three victims knew who was bullying them. Over the course of a year, almost one in five secondary students were directly involved in cyberbullying. Of those kids, twelve percent were bullies, four percent were victims, and three percent were both. (Hinduja and Patchin, 2009)

Sameer Hinduja and Justin Patchin, who run the Cyberbullying Research Center (http://www.cyberbullying.us), recently did a study and found that 1 out of 5 students reported contemplating suicide and about that many had actually attempted it. They write that their findings mesh with other suicide studies. When looking at bullying, they found both victims and aggressors were more likely to attempt suicide than their non-bullying peers. Victims of traditional bullying were 1.7 times more likely than their peers to attempt suicide and victims of cyberbullying were 1.9 times more likely to attempt it. Traditional bullies are 2.1 times more likely than their peers to attempt suicide and cyberbullies were 1.5 times more likely to attempt it. Although these numbers seem low and almost identical, the study authors write that any suicide attempt is one too many. (Hinduja and Patchin, 2010)

Access the original article at: http://www.insidetheschool.com/articles/social-networking-and-students-a-bad-mix/

Although this blog is all about protecting children online, a report from the ATL (Association of Teachers and Learners) has revealed that perhaps teachers also need protecting online… from their students.

The report states that a growing number of pupils are using social networking sites to bully their teachers. Malicious acts include students setting up false profiles posing as teachers, posting videos of them online and making spiteful groups with personal attacks.

Unfortunately, there is not much that can be done to stop pupils setting up a false profile as one of their teachers. A close friend who teaches at a primary school in London recently told me how a Year 6 pupil set up a Facebook profile posing as a female member of staff. He used a random photo of a woman with the same hair colour, but from a distance so her face remained unclear. He then added all teachers in the school that had Facebook profiles, gaining access to their private information and personal photos. He was found out when a member of staff commented to the teacher in question about their recent ‘friend request’, as she replied in a confused manner that was not even on Facebook.  Teachers at the school have now been asked to check that any ‘friend requests’ are genuine by asking staff members in person.

A similar story with more serious consequences involves one pupil creating a fake profile of a male teacher claiming that he enjoyed “under-age sex with both boys and girls.”

The ATL teachers’ conference heard that while social networking was a “wonderful resource for learning”, it had a sinister side that needs to be addressed. In a survey of 630 UK teachers, the ATL found 94% said they knew of colleagues that had had a group set up to discuss or post abusive messages about them.

The survey found 40% of respondents were worried information about them on social networking sites could be used in disciplinary action.

A spokeswoman for Facebook said it was important for the company that teachers and others working in education knew where they could go for information on cyberbulling and safety online. “Any content, such as bullying and harassment, which violates Facebook’s statement of rights and responsibilities, the governing document for the site, will be removed.”

“Any content, such as bullying and harassment, which violates Facebook’s statement of rights and responsibilities, the governing document for the site, will be removed.”

First blog to be censured by the Press Complaints Commission

Spectator columnist Rod Liddle has become the first blogger to be censured by the Press Complaints Commission. On the Spectator’s website, Mr Liddle wrote that the “overwhelming majority” of London’s violent crime was carried out by young, African-Caribbean men.

But the PCC ruled the former BBC Radio 4 Today editor’s words breached Clause 1 (Accuracy) of its code. It said the “significant ruling” showed publications’ websites would be held to the same standards as print editions. A reader had complained after the article was published in December 2009.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8594097.stm

Pupils fingerprinted without parental consent

Pupils are having their fingerprints taken without their parents’ consent, teachers have warned.

The Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) voted for urgent policy on the use of biometric data in schools at their annual conference yesterday. Schools use fingerprints in place of swipe cards to save time identifying pupils when they are buying their lunch or during registration. But some are taking data without parents or pupils’ permission, teachers said.

“Parental consent should be compulsory, it’s outrageous that pupils’ fingerprints can be taken without the parents’ consent,” Hank Roberts, executive member for ATL, said.

Teachers said it was wrong that the Data Protection Act allowed schools to collect biometric data from pupils without their parents’ knowledge. Azra Haque, a teacher at Hay Lane Special School in Brent, North London, said the practice was allowing “Big Brother” into the classroom.

“Schools should involve parents in their decision to use biometric data. We really do need a strong explicit law in this regard,” she said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/education/article7080697.ece

Chinese surfers search for controversial terms (and Google)

Chinese web users searched for politically sensitive terms ten times more than the average after Google stopped censoring results. Searches for “Tiananmen,” “Falun Gong” and “corruption” increased substantially on Tuesday, after Google began offering uncensored Chinese-language search results on Monday.

Subsequent web use, however, showed that Chinese users searched for similar terms much less. Although web pages were still often blocked by Chinese authorities, this appears primarily to be because of a lack of interest. Searches for “Google” itself remained relatively high.  Controversial terms were not the only ones being blocked however: results for government leaders’ names were also being censored.

According to Google Trends, there were about 2.5 million searches for phrases containing “Tiananmen” and about 4.7 million searches for the banned religious group “Falun Gong” on Tuesday. Although this represents an increase, there are 400 million Chinese web users. More than 20 million people searched for “Google” itself, implying greater interest in the search engine than in controversial information.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/7534512/Chinese-surfers-search-for-controversial-terms-and-Google.html

Google and Yahoo criticise Australia’s ‘heavy-handed’ internet filter plans

Australia came under fire today from the United States for its proposed internet filtering system, which, if implemented, would be the strictest of any democracy.

A US state department official said that it had raised concerns with Australia over the plans, which are to be voted on by its parliament.

“We remain committed to advancing the free flow of information, which we view as vital to economic prosperity and preserving open societies globally,” Michael Tran, a state department spokesman told the Associated Press.

“We don’t discuss the details of specific diplomatic exchanges, but I can say that we have raised our concerns on this matter with Australian officials.”

Internet companies Google and Yahoo have already condemned the proposal as a heavy-handed measure that could restrict access to legal information.

Australia’s communications minister, Stephen Conroy, said the filter would block access to sites that include child pornography, sexual violence and detailed instructions in crime or drug use. The list of banned sites could be updated based on public complaints. But he declined to say what the US had told Australia.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/29/google-yahoo-australia-internet-filter

Spanish official admits posing as child on website

The Guardian reports that a senior Spanish official has provoked outrage by admitting he visited a social networking website under a pseudonym, as concern grows about the number of adults masquerading as children on the web.

Arturo Canalda, the children’s ombudsman for Madrid, told a university conference he set up a false profile to keep an eye on his own children’s networking.

“I signed on with a false profile as that way I could see what my children are up to as if I was just another kid,” he said. Canalda said his children knew of his false persona and had allowed him to become their social networking “friend”.

But the false character soon generated its own network of friendships, as Canalda was befriended by his own children’s friends even though they had no idea who he was.

“The strange thing is that friends of my friends take me on too, just because I am a friend of my children – without any control whatsoever,” he said. “This is both legal and anyone can do it, without the children suspecting anything at all.”

Canalda has come under fire from officials, critical of what many see as snooping – especially as it gave him access to what other children were writing.

Caridad García, from the United Left coalition, said Canalda “should be advising parents not to follow his example”.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/17/social-networking-false-id-children

Home Sec: Why No Panic Button On Facebook?

Sky News states that the Home Secretary Alan Johnson is to meet representatives of Facebook to ask why it does not have a ‘panic button’ for children worried about paedophiles. It follows the case of teenager Ashleigh Hall, who was kidnapped, raped and murdered by a serial sex offender she met on the social networking site.

A Home Office spokesman said Thursday’s meeting had been requested by Mr Johnson “to better understand the reasons why Facebook currently have not introduced the Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre report abuse button.

“Hundreds of websites sites have already signed up to CEOP’s report abuse button that enables young people to seek help if they think they are in danger online.

“We don’t see any good reason why major sites wouldn’t want to offer the same option to help protect younger users.”

A Facebook spokesman said they were looking forward to the meeting, adding: “We are committed to maintaining the highest levels of protection for our users.

“We regularly work with national law enforcement organisations and the world’s leading experts in online protection to ensure we provide the best possible security for anyone that uses the site.”

http://tiny.cc/OfPdv

Loxford pupils to work ‘virtually’ over Easter when school relocates

The Times reports that Loxford School in Ilford, East London, is moving to a new site after a multimillion-pound rebuild. The secondary school will not physically be open to children for a week each side of the Easter holiday, although teachers will be there.

Unfortunately for the pupils, they will not get a month-long break, but are expected to attend school “virtually” and do their work online. Those without computers will go to the houses of friends who have them. The school hopes pupils of all ages will collaborate to do their work, take part in discussions, and complete tasks as they would in the classroom.

They will be encouraged to post questions online and use forums and chat rooms to analyse problems in groups. Teachers will be available online to give them feedback and monitor student progress. All students will also be given paper worksheets, to prevent them from using computer problems as a reason for not doing their work.

While no one will be checking up on the pupils, any who have not completed their work on return to school will face sanctions including detentions.

A spokeswoman for the school admitted there was a great deal of trust involved. She said: “Hopefully it will be school as normal for the students, without a teacher in sight. The students will be expected to complete their work on a daily basis.

“Moving over the Easter holidays has presented many challenges, especially as this means an extended break for some students in the run up to their final examinations. The virtual school will reduce the effect of this break, enabling all students to continue with learning activities.”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/education/article7064722.ece