For the past several years I’ve helped judge Trend Micro’s annual What’s Your Story video contest which, in past years, focused on how to combat Internet risks like cyberbullying and inappropriate use of mobile technology. But this year, the contest had a more uplifting theme. Contestants were asked to create videos that addressed the question, [...]
Digital wisdom from young filmmakers: “What’s Your Story?” winners
This year was a wonderful departure – and I think trendsetter – not only for Trend Micro’s “What’s Your Story?” video contest but for Internet safety education as a whole. It asked filmmakers to show us what “the good side of the Internet looks like” to them. There are two grand prize winners, a school [...]
Study: Some teens feel ‘obligated’ to use Facebook – most savvy about privacy
A new study by the Pew Research Center has good and bad news for Facebook’s role as a teen destination. The report, Teens, Social Media and Privacy, shows that Facebook’s popularity with teens has actualy grown by 1% since 2011 to a whopping 94% of all teen social media users. The next highest service is Twitter (26%) [...]
For regulators, Google is the new Microsoft
At Google’s I/O developers conference in San Francisco last week, Senior Vice President Sundar Pichai announced that Chrome is now the world’s most popular Web browser and that there are now 900 million Android devices worldwide. Google has created quite an impressive global footprint. And the fact that Chrome is now bigger than Microsoft’s Internet Explorer makes [...]
ConnectSafely Releases Parents’ Guides to Instagram and Snapchat
Guides demystify popular photo-sharing apps and walk kids and parents through safety and privacy features Palo Alto, CA, May 21, 2013 – ConnectSafely.org, a leading Internet safety nonprofit, today announced the publication of two new and timely parents’ guides to Instagram and Snapchat, answering the Top 5 questions parents have about these photo-sharing apps so popular [...]
Tips for Strong, Secure Passwords
A strong password is your first line of defense against intruders and imposters. Never give out your password to anyone (except your parents). Never give it to friends, even if they’re really good friends. A friend can – accidentally, we hope – pass your password along to others or even become an ex-friend and abuse [...]
Why not a gazillion ‘likes’?: Getting wise to gamification in social media (& life)
Likes in Facebook and Instagram, +1′s in Google+, (potentially) “HISCORE(s)” in Snapchat are fun to get (though there isn’t much evidence having a HISCORE is a big deal for Snapchat users yet). They’re a great example of gamification, a word that’s increasingly heard in pop culture as much as education. There’s nothing wrong with liking [...]
Help Support an Inspirational Picture Book for Kids and Get a Copy for Yourself
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 [...]
New!
Parents’ Guides to Instagram & Snapchat
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Connectsafely’s new Parents’ Guides to both Instagram and Snapchat.
Dave Taylor: The Internet doesn’t have a delete key
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 [...]