Cyber-predators are a topic I loathe discussing.  The research I have done on predators has made me lose sleep and eventually, when researching, I stumble across cases I wish I could forget.  But the research is worth it,   helping parents and kids understand how predators work, and how to spot red flags is one of the primary reasons this blog started.

What is a Cyber Predator?
Technically speaking, a cyber-predator is someone who uses digital media to establish and manipulate a relationship with his victim.  Most commonly, this is sexual in nature, but can also involve manipulation for money or other things.  Lately, some predators just have victims send compromising pictures and videos.

The Process of Grooming-
Cyber Predators are well versed in establishing a relationship with their victims and have no qualms about taking months to "groom" their victims.  Grooming- is the process by which a predator slowly gets his victim to drop his/her guard. This is done by first appearing like the one who "understands" the victim.  Many teens feel that no one understands them, a predator turns this his advantage.  Predators become the victim's best friend and the relationship becomes nearly addictive.  Predators will slowly begin to exploit a child's natural curiosity about sex and begin to introduce topics and media that is sexual in nature.

From my research I have found predators exploit victims in two distinct ways:
Direct abuse- Where the predator grooms the victim and convinces him/her to meet in a public or private place. 
Indirect abuse-Where the predator grooms the victim and convinces them to send revealing pictures and videos of themselves.

Neither of these two types of abuse are exclusive, for example. A common tactic for a predator has been to convince a victim to send nude pictures and video of themselves.  Later, the predator uses this leverage to force a meeting with the victim and blackmail them into sexual acts.  

One such predator is Nicolas Stone, who convinced 55 girls between the ages of 12-17   to get undressed in front of their webcam.  These pictures and videos were later used to create pornographic material and was published to the Web.  Nicolas also convinced a number of the girls to meet him in person and engage in sex acts.  At the time of sentencing Nicolas was 35 years old, he has three children. 


What can you do?
1. Get protective software that logs every key-stroke, conversation and media that is exchanged on your computer. God forbid your child is disappears, this software could help you locate them.  There is similar software available for cell-phones as well.
2. Keep all web-enabled devices OUT of the teens rooms and in a public area of the house. You can disable a laptop wifi card so the laptop needs a cable to access the internet.  At bedtime, collect phones.
3. Watch all deliveries, or have the post office hold them for you. Predators will send pre-paid cell phones, plane tickets and bus tickets. Predators prefer having a victim to come to them, then they have not taken a minor across state lines.
4. Have your child's password for every social media account they have.  If you are not sure what accounts they have- check the history on your Internet Browser and see where your child goes online. "Friending" your child does not work!
5. Check http://www.familywatchdog.us/ to stay apprised of any predators in your immediate area. However,  most predators do travel quite a bit to meet victims

      Recently E-School News published the article Teen ‘sexting’: Less Common than Parents, Educators Might Fear.  The article discusses the current statistics about 'Sexting' (the electronic transmission of nude or semi nude pictures usually via cellphone).  Essentially the article states that Sexting is not as serious as teachers and parents think.        

     The study is based on a survey of 1,560 children, 10 to 17 years old, who use the internet.  I challenge the validity of these findings based on the age range involved.  As of right now, the study states that slightly more than 7 percent of  children participating in this study have received, sent or taken inappropriate pictures of themselves or others.  I speculate if the focus of the group was reduced to only include high school age students this percentage would sharply increase. 

       Upon reading the article I did my own research ( aka: asking my students) about their knowledge about kids that participate in Sexting.  My results revealed about  70% of my students in one class know of sexted images circulating.  In previous years I have gone so far to conduct my own surveys and collect data.  Once High School begins, the Sexting numbers rise.  I do agree, with one assertion of the study; that promiscuous teens are more likely to engage in Sexting than more conservative teens.  I suggest that we all keep in mind that even teens who are rational and not promiscuous can be pressured into sexting.

What parents need to know:
     How does Sexting effect teens?  A 'Sext' is most often used as relationship currency between boys and girls.  It is usually a girl who is seeking to win the affection of a boy or to keep the interest of a boyfriend.  As with the case of Jessie Logan, she sent a Sext of herself to a boyfriend.  Upon breaking up, the boy spread the picture of Jessie around her High School.  Jessie was taunted mercilessly because of the picture, but she persevered through High School and graduated.  Sadly, when Jessie made it to college, she found the sext had circulated there as well and she took her life.  

The Legal Issue:
Beyond the horrible repercussions that people like Jessie suffer, there are legal ramifications to Sexting as well.  First, anytime a teen under the age of 18 takes a nude or partially nude picture of them selves- in the eyes of the law that teen is now in the possession of child pornography.  If that teen 'sexts' that picture to anyone else, he or she has now trafficked child pornography.  

For example, child pornography charges were brought against six teenagers in Pennsylvania in January 2009 after three girls sent sexually explicit photographs to three male classmates.  A More troubling fact is that teens who are charged with possession and trafficking child pornography from Sexting, will most likely be labeled a sex offender for the rest of their lives.

So, perhaps the study mentioned by E-School News is correct and Sexting is not as pervasive as once thought.  Regardless, Sexting is a very real issue that already has robbed teens of their reputation and lives.  I strongly suggest that all parents sit down with their teens and discuss Sexting and its ramifications.

I had done a post earlier in the year entitled Yes Parents, I do use cellphones in my English classes for my students.  Today, this post is for my colleagues at our December faculty meeting.

The video below is a great introduction to Poll Everywhere

Today I gave a brief summary of my favorite mobile tools for the classroom at our faculty meeting.  This post will helpfully support my fellow teachers in their effort to use mobile technology in the classroom. Poll Everywhere and Remind101 are staples for my classes.  Remind101 created by Brett Kopf and his brother, is designed to send text blasts from teacher to student while protecting the privacy of both.

I will upload the hand-outs shortly so please check back.

Over the past couple of days, there has been much chatter from ed tech bloggers about the newest Norton report about cyber baiting.  Cyber baiting is when students instigate or taunt their teachers, capture the teacher "losing it" with the class, (usually on a smartphone) and post the teacher's outburst to the Web.

Countries where this becoming more prevalent are the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.  Furthermore, according to the Norton Online Family Report, one in five teachers  reported to have experienced or have known a colleague who has experienced cyber baiting.

Doing my own extensive research (aka asking my own students) I found many, many disturbing videos.   In some cases, students are clearly setting the teacher up for a fall.  Others,  I believe, are teachers who I believe are totally overwhelmed or who have no business teaching.

The above teacher is clearly trying to teach and is obviously frustrated.  In the comment section of the above video, students are actually speaking out against the trouble-makers.  As a fellow teacher, I can sympathize with this teacher's frustrations.  I feel bad for the teacher because he is unaware that he is being recorded and because he obviously has some chatter going on while he is trying to give directions.

One suggestion I have for any teacher in this situation is to read the book The First Days of School, by Harry Wong. There are amazing techniques offered for removing undesirable behavior that is a personal attack against the teacher.  As a teacher, if I can keep the behavior separate from the child, and not allow it to affect me personally, then half the battle is won.  Harry Wong is a great resource for any teacher looking to hone his/her management skills.  

Now this video on the other hand, is over the top.  The teacher is obviously upset that the student has destroyed a calculator.  But there are several things wrong with this display of frustration.   Acting this way does no good for either party. Was he cyber baited into acting this way? I am unsure, but nevertheless it was caught by camera phone and uploaded to YouTube. Now his bad day will always be available for any future students or parents to see.  Yes, he could jump through a few hoops and have the content removed from YouTube and  pulled from a Google search.  I think this is a lesson for all teachers; we no longer have to worry only about what we publish online, but what may be published about us as well.

What to do?  
1.  Make sure your school and your colleagues are aware that cyber baiting is a growing trend among teens.  
2.  Instruct colleagues to create a "Google Alert" whenever new content tagged with their name is published to the Web. 
3.  Find out if your school has any rules against recording devices in the class. 
4.  Remember, a teacher who loses it is lost. Bad behavior is not a personal attack usually.  Have procedures and   
     consequences in place and consistently follow them.


Let's just hope technology does not advance to allow students to read our minds!  :)

This blog post is written for class parents at the behest of my students.  

Today, as my 10th grade students entered the classroom, I was asked repetitively to send a note home to the parents, confirming that I use cellphones as a teaching device. I do, and it is fantastic.  BYOT (bring your own technology) is a growing trend among some educators, because school districts simply do not have the money to buy every student a device to use.  However, there are good and bad points to using this technology.

Among the good- nearly 100% class participation.  I read this, but I did not believe it until I saw it in action.  Students were actually cheering and applause during a Romeo and Juliet review. I have never had cheering during a review of any kind, so this was an interesting turn of events.  Students that normally do not speak up and are shy now contribute enthusiastically.  It's something special when students say "Can we do this again? It was fun!" in regards to a lesson.  I had immediate feedback on strengths and weakness of my previous lessons by watching their answers populate in front of me. I could do on- the- spot reteaching or lead a discussion when I realized that there were gaps in student learning.  Students who did not have access to technology were paired with those that did, and they worked excitedly as a team to answer the poll.

Unfortunately not all students have cellphones, and the devices they do have are different.  There are a few students that do not have cellphones handy, and some must pay for each text message sent or received.  One way to get around this would be for me to sign out laptops, have students use my phone, or even purchase a couple of pre-paid cellphones and allow students to borrow them during class.

All in all, this technology was a game changer for me. I wish I had not waited so long to try out Poll everywhere.  Creating polls takes me less than ten minutes at the end of my day and the impact they have is amazing.

Social media (the devices by which we interact online) and social networks (the network of people connected by Social Media) are redefining parenting in the 21st Century.

Having been involved with Educational Technology for 14 years, I have a unique perspective about social media. On the whole, I am a fan, and use social media as a teaching device whenever possible. As a parent, I have concerns.  I do not believe that our children are adequately prepared to deal  in a mature fashion with all the technology they have at their disposal.

My vision is to empower teens and their parents with the necessary tools to navigate this technology safely and effectively, and harness its power to enhance life.

Let me begin with one of the primary concerns of all parents -- Facebook. During the past few years, I have conducted many surveys of my students' technology habits. The data regarding Facebook in particular were very enlightening.

Profile-accessibility:
     When I first began teaching the proper use of Facebook, most of my students assured me that their Facebook profiles are secure.   Using one of my surveys, 64% of my students reported that they were sure that their profiles were closed to public viewing; the remaining  were to varying degrees unsure.  After teaching my students how to lock down their profiles, I discovered more than  85% of my students’ profiles were viewable to the public.  Many of these profiles contained phone numbers, pictures and addresses. Consequently, even when a student believes he has been diligent about profile security, he can be endangered by her less -scrupulous friends.  I often see pictures of teens on Facebook with identifying school logos and store or street-names in the background.  This,coupled with lax profile security, can be telling information for predators and bullies.

     What comes next shocked my students: Whenever someone plays any Facebook game,  takes a poll, or even passes along peace plants, (all third-party software) complete access has been given to the author of that program to all of their profile information.  Third-party software is a serious concern when dealing with Facebook, and my advice would be not to use any third-party software and advise your child to do the same.  At the very least, be aware of the risks inherent with third party software and have your child ask permission before allowing access to it. In Facebook’s exact words:
     “Remember that these games, applications and websites are created and maintained by other businesses and developers who are not part of Facebook, so you should always make sure to read their terms of service and privacy policies.”

Pictures on Facebook
     What is  more distressing is that, in the “Facebook Terms of Service,” there is language that  indicates that anything that is uploaded on Facebook can be used in any fashion as long as the content is viewable to others:

"For content that is covered by intellectual property rights, like photos and videos (IP content), you specifically give us the following permission, subject to your privacy and application settings: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook (IP License). This IP License ends when you delete your IP content or your account unless your content has been shared with others, and they have not deleted it."

     More clearly stated, any picture or video that is made available for others to see can be legally used by Facebook for as long as that piece of media is viewable to others.

     For example, I told my students a true story about a journalist who saw her friend's picture on a plastic-surgery advertisement on Facebook. The journalist's friend had no idea that a picture that she had posted was being used this way.  Even if Facebook does not use the picture, other third party sites may use them.  Try Googling Facebook picture used ad”“, the first result will be from Facebook “debunking” this sad trend, just read on.  Whether Facebook uses the media or not, the language in the TOS gives them full reign.

     Lastly, I asked how my students had gotten their Facebook accounts, despite age restrictions. Some said their parents allowed them to lie about their age. And some kids just went ahead and created one with out their parents knowing. 

What to do?
1. Seriously reconsider allowing your child to have a Facebook account.  Remember, what is done online is permanent and unscrupulous, illegal or immoral activity can affect the possibility of getting into college or getting a job.  It could also seriously damage his reputation.

2. If you allow your child to have a Facebook account, do not let him lie about his age. There are certain precautions Facebook does take to protect the young. For example, any member under 18 will automatically be exempt from public directory information, and Facebook will restrict what adults can contact them.

3. Friending your child does not work! It is easy for teens to restrict their parents from seeing their posts, relationship status and posts to friends they know you do not want them contacting.  You must have your child’s password and use it to check his account often!  Please refer to my blog for a screencast entitled “How to check Facebook security & how your child may block you.”  the screencast also includes other topics on social media parenting.

*Remember until brain growth (pre-frontalcortex) stops in their early twenties,  young people have little idea about  risk assessment.  Risky behavior does not come from being irresponsible kids, but simply from being kids. 


Please click here to see "How to" videos on Facebook safety for you and your child. Also, visit the Facebook video tabs above.

Nearly all of my students who have cellphones have "smart phones." One of the inherent problems of having a smart phone is that by default they usually "geo-tag" any pictures uploaded to the Internet. 

Loosely defined, "geo-tag" means that any photo is "tagged" with information about the location from where it was taken -- the longitude, latitude and other sensitive data.  If your child has a Facebook, Picasa, Flickr, Twitter,  or Photobucket  account, this can be a serious issue. 

Any stalker can download Opanda Software  (a free download) and use it to open any viewable picture.  If the camera has tagged the picture with GPS data, Opanda is sure to find it.   Also by default, Facebook geo-tags all content as well.  When a photo is geo-tagged, a predator does not need to wait, or even do extensive research to zero in on the location of  potential victims' school or home. 

The above picture is of my son at the Orange County Fair.  Information about the camera, the owner and GPS are all available through Opanda.

For further information on geo-tagging, please read this Wikipedia article:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geotagging 

Also -- parents, many of us take pictures of  our children with our phones and share them.  I strongly suggest you turn off the GPS function for both your phone's camera and your child's. 

This CNET video describes how to turn off geo-tagging on iPhones, Android phones, and Blackberries. 

I received the following pertinent question today from my parent Google group: 


Good Morning - what if anything can you tell me about the safety and security of the iPod touch?  Do you know if the access to the internet is completed unprotected, unable to put parental controls on?  And are there any other tracking or possible predatory threats?  I appreciate any information you could provide. 

Thanks so much for the great question.  There are inherent dangers whenever a child has unrestricted access to the Internet in any form, and the iPod touch is basically a handheld computer. There is software you can install that will monitor your child's activity on his cell phone... I am not sure if iPod security would be any different. 

I love this website for cell phone and iPhone monitoring software: 
http://www.pcsndreams.com/Pages/Sexting_Statistics.html 

According to what I found, there really are not too many parental controls for the iPod touch or iPhone yet.


You can go to Settings > Restrictions, then enter a passcode and set restrictions to access: 

• iPod songs with explicit lyrics 
  
• Safari 
  
• YouTube 
  
• iTunes 
  
• Installing Apps 
  
• Camera 
  

Unfortunately, except for the explicit iPod settings, these are strict restrictions to the use of these applications and no filtering. For example, restricting Safari means that you can't use the web browser at all, which removes many of the more useful features of the iPhone or Internet-enabled iPod Touch. 

The bottom line is that the iPod Touch is still a good choice for kids to listen to music, play games and use other applications.  However, until there are better parental controls, it might be safer to set the restrictions and leave its WiFi Internet connection off.   (Don't give your kids the password to your home WiFi network.   If you don't have a password, get one.)

I will create a movie for my Google Group Parents showing how to disable many features on the iPhone.  If you use the iPod Touch, the process will be very similar -  the only difference is that you need Wifi to text or send/receive media.

Photo image:  http://www.hightech-edge.com/turn-ipod-touch-into-iphone-use-voip/4591/

One of the reasons why I have not blogged in so long is because I have been engaging in email lessons with my students’ parents.

It never occurred to me to use this correspondance as the fodder for blog posts. All this time I have felt like an epic blogging failure because I had not picked it back up after the birth of my daughter. But I have been blogging this whole time, just to a private audience.

My efforts have been to teach my parents augmented Cyber Safety lessons while their children are learning the same subject. I feel this two pronged teaching approach is the best way to keep my students safe.  Before long I realized that I have enough information for an entire website dedicated Parents

Below is today’s letter:

Good Morning Parents,

I had this in my Twitter feed this morning and I wanted to forward it to you as well.

As a parent I am definitely guilty of being on my phone while sitting on the couch with my kids, I am surprised that I have not come across social media parenting lessons before.

In an age where many of us are connected all the time, we begin to lose touch with the subtleties of face to face human contact. I noticed this myself while my son and I are having ‘our’ time after I put my daughter to bed. It is the only time of the day when it is just me and my son, and I am ashamed to say that I found myself often plugged into my phone rather than enjoying that moment of cuddling with my boy.

‘Social Media’ (being the tools we use like Facebook, Flickr, Youtube) have made all of us use ‘Social Networks’ (the people using the tool) to stay plugged in. Because of being plugged in citizen journalismhas taken off, like the example below.

It is rumored that Twitter was used to first to announce attack on Bin
Laden and then later his subsequent death. That example just goes to
show how social media and citizen journalism is changing our world.

We are living in amazing times, being “plugged in” is a natural part of our lives, but that makes it ever more in important to prioritize times to be “unplugged” with our children. Our kids will learn from our behavior more than anything we say.  I need to remember this the next time my son is asking for my attention when I am mid-text. Is it more important for me to answer that text? Or put the phone down and look into his big blue eyes.  And they are BIG blue eyes.