"Doing" Internet Safety

* who you talked with (no names are needed - just a brief description of age)
I talked with a male - 54 years of age - soon to be 55.

* what you shared and how it went (was it positive? negative? hard? easy? valuable or not?)
The man has been in the business sector for many years and is very familiar with word processing and e-mail - as he continues to use it in his daily life since he is not yet retired. But it was interesting to find out how little he actually was aware of when it comes to the internet. He has a vague idea of what spyware and adware are and it is interesting to see the generational gap. Although as I reflected upon my youth, I still remember being in middle school and having to log on to AOL through a dial up modem and you were charged by the minute for using the service...in direct contrast to today's world where we send and receive movies across the internet now. I shared with him some of the terminology that is used and how the computer logs the addresses visited in the browser's history. He knew that it was not a good idea to open e-mails from people you don't know - and virus' have been a hot topic recently with the USB virus that was supposed to evolve just last week on March 1st. While he found all of this information interesting, when asked how practical he felt the information was - he wasn't really sure how practical it was to tell him all of this now. He has a wife who only uses the computer for Solitare and he uses it for e-mail and business purposes - that is it. Anything that would affect him (like opening e-mails from unknown senders) he already knows. He was interested in learning a little more about virus' - since his desktop at his home crashed less than a year ago - presumably from an overload of virus'. It was easier to share all of the terminology as we were both on a computer during the phone conversation. I think it was a positive experience - but as previously mentioned, perhaps not the most practical conversation.

Internet Safety

1. What article did you choose to read for your fourth article?
I chose to read Mario Hipol's article entitled "Fighting Internet Filth"

2. What were the most important things you learned from the readings?
I think a lot of these ideas have already been integrated into my home as I grew up - and the internet wasn't nearly as popular or readily available as it is today. It was interesting to read about how it is the father's duty to Preside over the family and how presiding was interpreted to mean setting the limits on the internet. I think that is one of the things that I have never really though about. One of the things that I'm guilty of is just being on the internet to pass time - I'll be doing my homework and have Facebook up or something like that. But there was a lot of practical advice - such as keeping the computer in a high traffic area and making sure that the cache is not cleared out when it shouldn't be. I think that my kids will have a harder time pulling the wool over my eyes because I would consider myself pretty technologically savvy, although who knows what technology will be introduced in the future!

3. How will what you have read influence your actions as a parent and/or teacher of children and youth?
I have a feeling the cyber bullying is going to become more of an issue in the older elementary grades - and will replace the actual bullying that takes place. It is relatively easy to sign up for e-mail accounts with false information and then send e-mails or post on people's facebook walls stuff that is not nice or appropriate. I will teach my students and children civility and proper etiquette in using the internet. Hopefully some of the lessons that I teach will stay with my students and they will apply the things that I teach.

4. How can you use what you have learned from the reading to have a positive influence on family and friends?
I think the positive influence is in sharing what information I have in helping others stay safe on the internet. It was interesting how one of the articles said that it is not practical to tell our children to stay away from the internet completely. I really liked that statement because it is very true. You can not expect your children to NOT use the internet. It is a wonderful resource. It was interesting at the end of this past General Conference...last session last talk, President Monson was very direct in his plea for members of the church to cease to use the internet inappropriately. It must be becoming a bigger and bigger problem for the church. But our prophet is telling us that we need to be careful - and it is always wise to follow the prophet.

El Ed Technology Integration

El Ed Technology Project

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