Technology

We are committed to fostering responsible and ethical digital citizenship among our students, staff, and the broader community. Digital citizenship is the practice of using technology, particularly the internet, in a responsible, respectful, and safe manner. As technology continues to play a central role in education and everyday life, it is essential that we all understand and uphold the principles of digital citizenship.

This new lens focuses on empowering learners to be in community with others in online spaces and showing them that digital citizenship goes beyond conversations about personal responsibility. It’s about being active citizens who see possibilities instead of problems and opportunities instead of risks as they curate a positive and effective digital footprint."   - ISTE.org 

We've found some great resources from Google's Be Internet Awesome, Common Sense Media and ISTE.org and organized them to make it easier for parents, students, and teachers to access what they need.

1. Never leave your device unattended
   One minute it’s there and the next minute it’s gone. Smartphones, laptops and tablets have a decent resale value. Besides, now cybercriminals make more money by stealing the data that’s stored in these devices than from reselling them. Information like passwords, addresses, birthdates of family members, and Social Security numbers fetch a pretty price in the underground economy. Criminals can patch together the information on all these devices to commit identity theft. Children make excellent targets for device theft because there is a high probability for all this information to be on their devices due to school and sports activities that require this information. Teach your kids how valuable these devices are, and to keep them close.

2. Click with caution
   Whether subtle or bold, phishing is dangerous. One careless click is all it takes for malicious software to get into devices and wreak havoc. Talk to your kids about not automatically clicking on links in emails. Show them how to hover your mouse over the link to make sure it is going to a reputable address. Spelling mistakes, odd emails from popular companies, and threatening messages urging quick action are some of the telltale signs of a phishing email designed to install malware on your device. When in doubt, do not click on the link. Instead go straight to the company’s website and contact the person concerned or the customer service department to ensure such a mail was sent to you.

3. Never ever share your password
   You may think that everyone knows the importance of keeping passwords a secret — but maybe your children don’t. After all, 76% of people share passwords. It takes just one moment of poor decision-making and you risk exposing everything stored in your device. Teach your kids to protect accounts with strong, unique passwords that use a combination of at least 10 upper and lowercase letters, symbols, and numbers to confuse password-stealing bots that scour the Web. Change your passwords every three months and don’t use the same password across different accounts.

4. Be wary of using social media
   Many social networks require users to be at least 13 years of age, but some allow children to sign up with their parent’s permission. If your children have accounts, check their privacy settings. The default settings may expose more information than you’d like. Change settings to the highest level of privacy. You never know who is snooping around their social media profiles. Teach your kids not to accept friend requests from people they — and you — don’t know. Some friend requests come from bots that will spam friends lists. There are many risks that come with social accounts, but stalking and bullying are two very real dangers that can haunt kids online and off. Publicly broadcasting your location is not the safest thing to do. To deter stalkers, disable location services on your child’s phone and apps.

5. Be a good online citizen
   Remember, the Internet is forever. So anything said online stays online. Nothing really gets deleted, not even on Snapchat. Unfortunately, since the Internet is the new playground, bullying can plague children offline and on. Teach your children to practice good online etiquette and to never say mean things. Instead, they should be kind and not participate in negative posts. Let them know that the law protects cyberbullying victims, so they should tell you if they are being cyberbullied or know someone who is.

Links -

• https://www.cyber.nj.gov/informational-report/keeping-children-safe-online
• http://www.staysafeonline.org/
• https://www.cisa.gov/uscert/ncas/tips