There were two $10,000 grand prize winners in two categories: individual (or a group of individuals) and schools.  The winners in the individual category were Saad Sifate, George Strawbridge, and David Oladejo, of Ottawa, Ontario. The school grand prize went to teacher Patty Ream’s class at Ripley Union Lewis Huntington High School, of Ripley, Ohio.

Individual prize

Sifate, Stawbridge and Oadejo’s entry, “I’m an Educated Dude,” which took place in front of a graffiti covered wall in Ottawa, consisted of a poetic rap about the pros and cons of the Internet. I was a little worried that the group might have missed the mark when the lyrics began with, “Press down Ctrl H, all I see is hate, confidence deflate and less than civil debates.” But I lit up when he went on to rap, “But the forgotten message is that the Internet has a direct correlation to education communication and a supreme impact on our generation. Education is the key.” What impressed me was the way the video explored the nuances of the Internet and how you can transform bad into good.”The Internet is a composite and the parts that are negative are what can truly make it positive,” it concluded.  But my quotes don’t do it justice. Click here or below to see the two-minute video for yourself.

I’m an Educated Dude (two-minute video by Saad Sifate, George Strawbridge, and David Oladejo)

School entry

The school video, “The Legend of the Responsible Gamer,” begins with a teenage boy bad mouthing another online gamer “you’re so bad kids, why do you even play this game, why not do everyone else a favor and log off.”  But then the unthinkable happens. A hand reaches out from the monitor and pulls the young gamer into another world where he is greeted by a guy in what looks like a Jolly Green Giant outfit who — in a positive and very physical way — teaches him a lesson in humility as they go through an obstacle course together with some positive reminders like “it takes a much better person to encourage somebody rather than bash them down.” Click here or below to view the video.

Legend of the Responsible Gamer (Ripley Union Lewis Huntington High School)

Also see Digital wisdom from young filmmakers: “What’s Your Story?” winners from my ConnectSafely.org co-director, Anne Collier.

Dave Taylor (Source: AskDaveTaylor.com)

Guest post

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 the party last Saturday night, the angry Tweet, none of them are permanent so it’s no big deal.

Unfortunately, they’re wrong.

There’s never really been any medium like the Internet, with its millions of Web sites and thousands of sharing and social services. It’s not an “information superhighway”, it’s not a “huge bulletin board”, and it’s not “just like text messaging dozens of your friends”. Because of that, most parents are lost when trying to wrap their heads around how things work: there is no perfectly apt metaphor.

That misunderstanding breeds misinformation and that’s exactly what today’s teens have heard from their peers and, very occasionally, from their parents, that digital mistakes can be fixed, that nothing has permanence because the Web is a dynamic, “fluid” environment. It is, but for it to work, it’s also far more permanent than people realize.

When you’re connected to a Web site, for example, odds are very good that most of what you’re seeing is coming from what’s called a caching server somewhere between the actual computer that hosts the site and your own system, a snapshot that’s maybe a few minutes, maybe a day or more old. It helps the Internet run faster.

(Credit: Dave Taylor)

There are also archival services like The Internet Wayback Machine  that take historical snapshots of as many sites as they can access for research purposes. Oh, and the Library of Congress , which receives regular archival copies of the entire public Twitter universe. Every. Single. Tweet.

And then there are search engines like Google  and Bing, which operate by making a copy of every single page that they index and scour for customers. The copy of the page that just matched your latest search could be days, weeks or even months old. Again, that helps the Web keep humming.

As should be clear, however, all of these get in the way of deletion really deleting things.<

Don’t believe me? Delete your Facebook account, wait a few months, then sign up again. Magically, your _deleted_ account will be restored. Why? Because Facebook doesn’t actually remove things, they just make them invisible to public search.

As a result, when I talk with teens, I drum into them the harsh truth, that the Internet has no delete key. Whatever you post, be it a photograph, a short video, a status update, a story or a tweet, make sure it’s something you want to live on for years and years into the future.

Dave Taylor is a single father to three, blogging about it at GoFatherhood, and a well-known technology writer who manages the popular AskDaveTaylor  tech Q&A site. You can find him everywhere online, but start on Twitter: @DaveTaylor

Read the entire post and listen to a recorded interview with Pew’s Amanda Lehnart over at CNET.

Two free Parents’ Guides help parents demystify and take the fear out of popular photo-sharing apps

Kids are flocking to mobile photo-sharing apps and leading the way are Instagram and Snapchat. Kids love Instagram (now owned by Facebook) because it’s an easy way to snap photos, enhance them with filters and quickly share them with friends. Snapchat is popular because photos self-destruct a few seconds after they’re viewed, so kids don’t have to worry about the long-term implications of having wacky or unflattering pictures permanently enshrined on the Internet. Of course, as we point out in A Parents’ Guide to Snapchat, , there are ways to capture the screen and even undelete pictures so kids need to still be careful not to post anything that can get them into serious trouble. Still, there are plenty of ways to have fun with your clothes on using Snapchat or Instagram.

Like Twitter, the default setting for Instagram is for photos to be public, but — as we say inA Parents’ Guide to Instagram, “you can easily change that.” Parents are advised to talk with their children about how to use Instagram’s privacy features and, of course, to be aware of what they post and how it affects their reputation.

Both Instagram and Snapchat require users be 13 or older but neither asks for date of birth. Parents are encouraged to talk about privacy and safety issues with children regardless of their age, but especially kids who are “too young,” but using it anyway.

Not so scary

Though there have been some scary press reports about these and other apps, the vast majority of kids are using them smartly. And it’s important for parents, educators and policy makers to understand that apps come and go but basic principles about safety, privacy and security remain constant. I’m not the first to point out that keeping kids away from such apps is like building a fence around a swimming pool. It might protect them from pool at that moment, but the best way to protect kids around all water is to teach them to swim safely. Our job as parents is to talk with (not at) our kids and help them develop life-time habits that will protect them in just about all situations online and offline.

What parents want to know

Each guide answers 5 top questions parents have covering:

• Why kids love these apps
• What the risks of each app are
• How to help kids stay safe using the apps
• How to report abuse and block problem users
• How to use privacy settings

The free guides, which I co-wrote along with my ConnectSafely.org co-director Anne Collier, are available to view on screen or print to share with schools, parent groups and kids and teens.

Disclosure: In addition to being co-author of the guides, I’m co-director ofConnectSafely.org, a non-profit Internet safety organization that receives financial support from Faceook, Google and other technology companies.

Book is based on based on the true-life story of Alter Wiener, a teen survivor of five prison labor camps during WWII (illustration (c) 2013 by Craig Orback)

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 labor camps during WWII and the author of From a Name to a Number. Wiener has authorized the project.

Ludwig has written several children’s books including My Secret Bully. Trouble Talk. Too Perfect and Confessions of a Former Bully. As you can tell from the titles, she has dedicated her considerable talents to helping raise resilient and caring children.

Ludwig and Orback are launching their project on Kickstarter because, “With big publishing house mergers and buyouts taking place right and left these days, we want to create a more hands-on publishing model that further supports collaborative efforts.”  And I have to admit I’m anxious to see how they do because I’m thinking of raising funds for my next book on Kickstarter after having written several books for major publishing houses.

Click here to view the Kickstarter campaign and pledge support for this worthy project and click below to see their video.

A forensics experts has shown how he can undelete Snapchat photos

I recently wrote about Snapchat, the popular photo sharing app that allows users to share photos that will self-destruct from between 1 and 10 seconds after they’re viewed.  As I said in that story, there are many reasons people use Android and Apple iOS app and that, despite worries about sexting, most kids are using the app in ways that parents would probably approve of.

But, it’s also important for kids and adults to realize that there’s no such thing content that absolutely disappears forever. Anything that can be digitized can be copied and stored and, as a forensics expert recently demonstrated, with the right tools, Snapchat photos, like PC files, can be undeleted.

After transfering data to a PC, forensics examiner Richard Hickman can access deleted photos from a “received image” folder (screen shot from KSL TV)

Richard Hickman, from Utah-based Decipher Forensics,  showed a KSL TV reporter how  how his firm can restore deleted  Snapchat photos from Android devices. He said he is working on a way to do the same with iOS phones and tablets. In a blog post, he described how he is able to transfer Snapchat data from an Android phone to a PC and recover deleted images.

Snapchat responded with its own blog post admitting “if you’ve ever tried to recover lost data after accidentally deleting a drive or maybe watched an episode of CSI, you might know that with the right forensic tools, it’s sometimes possible to retrieve data after it has been deleted.”

 Lessons learned

I’m sure you’ve heard this before but it doesn’t hurt to remind kids that, on the Internet, there there is no such thing as an eraser button.  Even if you think something is gone, you never know for sure.  The safest way to avoid problems is not to post or send anything that could get you into serious trouble if it were ever revealed.That’s not to say you shouldn’t do things that are a wacky or potentially even a bit embarrassing but you should avoid posting something that could get you into serious trouble or cause you severe mental distress were it later to surface.

When it matters: Calculating risks

It’s all a matter of calculating risks and benefits. Unless you’re sending your photos to mean or devious people, the odds of someone capturing the screen and sending around your pictures are probably quite low and — at least based on current technology — the process of undeleting is complicated and expensive and requires physical possession of the phone. It can’t be done remotely. The company that discovered it will charge parents and law enforcement between $300 and $500 per image recovered). What that means to me is that it’s OK to send wacky photos to your friends but not OK to send photos that could be illegal (such as sexually explicit or nude pictures of people under 18 — including self-portraits) or that could get you into serious trouble at school or with current or future friends or love interests.  For more on the risk issues, see “Why I’m Not Worried That It’s Possible to Undelete Snapchat Photos.”

Advice for parents

The takeaway for parents is, once again, to talk with your kids about how they are using this and all other apps, but not to panic or prevent them from using the app. There are lots of fun and appropriate ways to use Snapchat and other photo-sharing apps and its “disappearing” feature, however imperfect, can add to its fun because kids know that in most cases the images won’t stick around forever. Does that equate no risk? Of course not, but it also doesn’t mean that there aren’t good — and appropriate– ways to use the app.

National Center for Missing & Exploited Children grateful for recovery of 3 missing women

David Finkelhor

by Larry Magid

David Finkelhor, the director of the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire and a researcher for the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children, has written an incredibly useful article for the Washington Post, debunking 5 myths about missing children:

1. Most missing children have been abducted by strangers.

2. More and more children are going missing.

3. The Internet has made kidnapping easier.

4. Prevention lies in teaching children to avoid strangers.

5. The main goal should be to reunite children with their families.

Myth busting can save lives and avoid panic

Debunking myths is important because it helps make children safer. For example, panicking over stranger abduction – as horrific as that is — does nothing to help the vast majority of missing children who are missing for other reasons such as running away or being taken by a non-custodial parent. That’s not to say that we shouldn’t do all we can to prevent and find the one-hundredth of 1 percent of missing children who are “taken by strangers or slight acquaintances,” but we must also focus on all of the other children who are away from home for other reasons.

It’s also important to know that there is not an increase in the number of missing children cases or other crimes against both children and adults. Finkelhor points to FBI statistics “showing fewer missing persons of all ages — down 31 percent between 1997 and 2011.” He also wrote that “The numbers of homicides, sexual assaults and almost all other crimes against children have been dropping, too.”

Internet not increasing risk

And, as several studies have shown, the Internet does not increase a child’s risk of being abducted. If anything, argues Finkelhor, “it may have contributed to the decline in missing children,” because it has changed the way children take risks.  Socializing and experimenting online, said Finkelhor, is likely safer than “going to the unchaperoned open house or the keg party at the quarry.”

Most strangers are not “dangerous” but some acquaintances are

I’m very glad Finkelhor reminded people not to fall for the myth about “stranger danger.” While it is of course possible for a stranger to harm a child, the vast majority of children who are abducted, sexually molested or otherwise harmed by an adult are victimized by someone they know — often a family member or someone close to the family and sometimes by a trusted adult like a coach, clergy member or teacher. And strangers can be your friend. If a child is in trouble the best option is often to seek help from a stranger, perhaps a police officer but perhaps someone from the community.  Rather than fear strangers, Finkelhor says “We’d do much better to teach them the signs of people (strangers or not) who are behaving badly.”

For more about missing children check out this Key Facts page from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), including:

• More than 200,000 children were abducted by family members.
• More than 58,000 children were abducted by nonfamily members.
• An estimated 115 children were the victims of “stereotypical” kidnapping. These “stereotypical” kidnappings involved someone the child did not know or was an acquaintance. The child was held overnight, transported 50 miles or more, killed, ransomed or held with the intent to keep the child permanently.

If you have any information about a missing child call NCMEC at 800 THE LOST or visit the Cyber Tipline. You can also follow NCMEC on Twitter and visit NCMEC’s Facebook page.

Links:

Finkelhor’s Washington Post artitcle

Predator Panic Making a Comeback

Crimes Against Children Research Center

Net threat to minors less than feared

Disclosure: I’m a member of the board of directors of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children but do not speak on behalf of the organization

This post first appeared in the San Jose Mercury News

By Larry Magid

We’re just a few weeks away from school letting out and — for lucky families — a chance to spend a bit of time together on vacation.

Summer also means lots of free time for children and teens — time that can be taken up in outdoor activities like sports or playing in the park, indoor activities like playing video games and going online, or hybrid activities such as hanging out with friends while, at the same time, using their mobile devices for texting, taking and sharing pictures, playing games and social networking. For many kids these days, the lines between being offline and being online are blurry.

Talk but don’t lecture

So for parents, this is a great time to sit down with your kid and have “that talk.” No, not about the birds and the bees but about the bits and the bytes or, more precisely, about the appropriate use of the technology that many kids will have almost unfettered access to while they’re away from school.

The most important thing is to make this a conversation, not a lecture, and to approach it with a bit of humility because — at least in terms of the apps and services they use — they probably know more than you do. Use that to your advantage by getting them to explain what they’re doing on their computer, tablet, phone, iPod touch, game console or whatever devices they’re using to get online.

Engage kids in helping

Have the kids use their tech skills to benefit the entire family. If you’re planning a family trip, have the kids go online to research the history, geography and all the cool things to do at your destination. They can search through mobile app stores to find apps focused on the place you’re going (some cost money, so have them help you figure out if they’re worth the price). Have them read through local newspapers for the area you’re visiting and report back on what’s happening there. If you’re driving to your destination, the kids can be in charge of navigation with your cell phone GPS and by consulting an online map before you go (though with the price of gas today, I recommend you check out the route too).

If your teen or child has a smartphone, ask them to show you all the apps they use and have them explain what they do with them and how they are protecting their privacy. Ask them to explain the privacy features of the app and then do a little research on your own to make sure there aren’t some they’ve missed. Do the same with any social networks they use. You can find links to articles about settings for Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and popular game consoles at SafeKids.com/privacysettings.

Tablets and Toddlers

Very young children are now going online with tablets, iPod touches or their parents or older siblings’ smartphones, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. There are lots of great apps for small children from PBSKids and others but do be aware of how much time they’re spending with the device and what they’re doing.

Don’t assume that an app has to be labeled “educational” to have value. As Hanna Rosin asked in a recent Atlantic cover story, “Would you make your child read a textbook at bedtime? Do you watch only educational television? And why don’t children deserve high-quality fun?” She and experts she quotes make the case that young children can learn from a variety of apps and activities regardless of what “category” they fall under.

Still, and I know you’ve heard this before, never use technology as an electronic baby sitter. Kids of all ages need lots of interaction with family and friends and a wide variety of activities, including plenty of physical activity. Come to think of it, so do adults.

Be a good role model

And speaking of adults, consider how you’re role modeling. You can’t expect your child to moderate his or her use of phones, tablets and computers if they see you constantly using yours. Try to have dinner together as a family and try to ban the use of devices during the meal. Don’t leave your devices on in the bedroom. Consider creating a charging area in the main part of the house where devices can recharge their batteries while family members recharge theirs in bed. And “I use my phone as an alarm clock” isn’t a good excuse. You can buy a stand-alone alarm clock for under $10.

As I look back at my summer vacations as a kid, I remember hanging out with friends, spending a bit more time watching TV, playing games and sometimes being bored. The same can be true today. Kids can hang out with their friends in person and online (sometimes at the same time), they can play with apps on their devices and, instead of TV, many will watch YouTube.

And when it comes to boredom, that too isn’t such a bad thing. It’s a time to slow down, reflect and be left alone with your own thoughts. For that to happen, we need to “unplug” once in awhile — a lesson worth teaching our kids and heeding ourselves.

Larry speaks with Connie Yowell, Director of Education at the MacArthur Foundation about Project:Connect

Coders, writers, teachers and others concerned about making the web a better place for kids gathered in New York on Thursday for Project:Connect, a hackathon dedicated to building tools to make the Net a better place for children, sponsored by Facebook, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Mozilla, and the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI),

Categories of projects:

• Social Tools for Social Good – Enabling people to create a culture of kindness and respect that enhances civic participation.
• Social Tools that Enable Control of Information – Helping people understand how to control their information, and manage privacy and security.
• Social Tools that Enable Literacy – Helping people build, access, and understand or make components of the Web.

Winners

Winners of Project:Connect (photo: Krisa Kobeski)

Social good category

• Helpster: A website that enables people to create a culture of kindness and respect that enhances civic participation. The site brings together a community of “needsters” (those who need help with projects, small and large), “helpsters” (volunteers who can make a difference) and nonprofits and charities.
• “DoGood.org” (not actual URL): A website that leverages pop culture to encourage youth to have a lasting relationship with causes that resonate the most with them.
• Cyberstoop: A hyper local community that connects teens who are looking for free WiFi with businesses that donate connectivity and technology (loaner laptops and iPads) by zip code and/or neighborhood.

Enable literacy category

• Congregate: A tool to build common ground one issue at a time. The technology prepares young people (age 13+) to participate in democracy while giving them tools to influence their own future. Users can vote on and discuss issues that matter to them most. 
  
• A collaborative storytelling app/website that enables literacy, helps teens build, understand, and create a community that inspires them and helps them grow. Their storytelling community shares their passion and cheers them on as they write together.

Control of information category

• That Could Be Your Sister: A movement driven by young people that nurtures young women and turns bystanders into a community of active supporters that help girls grow in a safe environment.
• Digital Milestones: An online community for parents and kids where users can find resources and engage with experts to help guide young people as they experience digital milestones like creating a digital footprint, data security, privacy, digital citizenship and more.

Members of “That could be your sister” project (photo: Larry Magid)

Natick High School students and staff in front of brand-new school building (Photo: Natick School District)

Natick, Massachusetts, a town of about 33,000 people situated about 30 miles west of Boston, has recently instituted a “one-to-one” laptop program, equipping each of its 8th through 12th graders with a MacBook laptop they can use at school and at home.

The program, which is being evaluated by researchers at Boston College, seems to be getting off to a good start, according to staff and students I spoke with when I visited the campus of Natick High School. This mostly middle-class district already has a low dropout rate and a high graduation rate but, according to high school principal Rose Bertucci, test scores have risen “and there is a lot more engagement with the students.” She said that students are retaining more information and that discipline problems are down.  She acknowledged that there are some challenges including “making sure they stay on task in class all the time.”

The laptops have filters that keep students away from sites deemed inappropriate. Currently the district blocks access to Facebook but does permit students to use Twitter and YouTube.  I visited a social studies class where the teacher was encouraging students to Tweet questions to students in other countries in an effort to begin an international dialog. Not everyone was pleased about the decision to block Facebook. I spoke with two students who felt that the school should allow Facebook access at least when the students are using their computers outside of class. Of course students with smartphones have unrestricted access to the Internet on their own devices using their carrier’s data networks unless their parents have equipped the phones with filters. High school students are permitted to use smartphones on campus, but not in class except during teacher authorized learning projects.

Natick also has a brand-new high school building that opened this year. It’s equipped with LCD screens throughout to inform students of campus events along with WiFi throughout the entire school. The school even has an incredibly well-equipped high-tech  fitness center with tools to measure pulse rate, blood pressure and progress along with a staff of fitness teachers to help students and staff develop lifelong fitness habits.

Several years ago, when I took my own kids around the country to visit colleges, I kept thinking that I want to go back to college.  But after spending time in Natick, I almost wish I could go back to high school. Almost.

Links

School district’s page on 1:1 laptop program

What does research say about one-to-one computing initiatives