Cybercivility

Angry, sarcastic, and even threatening text messages or tweets – these are all becoming a daily occurrence for teachers and administrators. One school official in Maryland tells the story of the kind of “offensive and disturbing” messages he received in December related to the decision on whether to close schools due to the cold weather and now, he is asking the schools to do something about it. “We not only have to teach our kids how to handle new technologies appropriately, but we also have to model that behavior in our own communications on social media and email,” he said in the letter.

Of course, there are no easy answers. We are a society that strongly believes in free speech, but we, as parents, need to recognize that there is a big difference between texts and tweets and a handwritten letter that involves a delay and opportunities for revision, or a phone call that carries a more “human tone.” We need to emphasize this to our kids and model cybercivility ourselves.

Nastiness on the Playground Online & Offline

Bullying online and offline is moving down into the primary levels of schools today. Sure, educators have long known that some of those adorable little kids aren’t always as nice to others as they should be. Because of increasing numbers of complaints by children and their parents, one wonders if there is more bullying because of what kids are exposed to in videos and on television, or if it is that parents and children are so bombarded by media news about bullying that actions which used to be considered part of growing up and learning to deal with “less than pleasant” kids, have now been elevated in people’s minds to harassment? Pamela Paul, in her New York Times article, The Playground Gets Even Tougher, says “It could just be heightened awareness among hyper-parents, ever attuned to their children’s most minuscule slight. It could be a side effect of early-onset puberty, with hormones raging in otherwise immature 8-year-olds.” Educators often hear of incidents in which a child calls another “dumb” in a text message, the receiver may reply in a similar vein and then it’s all over. Although some may consider this bullying, bullying usually arises when these unkind behaviors continue and escalate to more intense levels. If they don’t, it’s probably not bullying. Because mean words and exclusion from groups can lead to serious bullying, teachers and parents should be aware of signs that children may find pleasure in being nasty to others they don’t want in their groups. This is the time to step in and let children know that their behavior is not acceptable. Parents also need to be careful about what their children are picking up from media shows such as inappropriate language, making fun of others, cruel humor, and aggressive behaviors. As Paul says, ”The mean girls are 8 but want to be 14, and their parents play along. They want to be top dog.”  So what can we in the schools do to help parents with these problems?

When You Are Texting You May Sending A Message That You Don’t Care

A business school professor, who has followed the incivility of more than 9000 managers and workers across the United States, says that “Electronic devices lead to more incivility because of their powerful ability to claim our attention — no matter where we are or what we’re doing.” For example, talk on your cell phone and ignore your colleagues, check your email rather than starting a meeting on time, or send something by email that probably would have gone over better delivered in person and many people will see you as inconsiderate. And if that happens at work, what do your children think when you do the same things at home?

So how can you minimize the impact your relationship with electronic devices has on your colleagues and even your family? The article goes on to advise:

• Keep your use of electronic devices at a minimum when interacting with others. If you have an urgent need to use one, let others know.
• If you are the receiving end of an electronic disappearing act and want face-to- face attention, politely ask for it.
• Face-to-face time is important at work as well as at home. Impose a moratorium on devices during meetings at work or family gathering at home, but allow breaks to check email or texts. And, most of all, set guidelines about what is and isn’t reasonable, and hold everyone to them — including yourself.

Posting & Sending “Less Than Appropriate” Photos

Terry Darr, librarian at Loyola Blakefield, an all-boys high school in Baltimore has started sessions at her school that give students the chance to talk about decision-making when using technologies. The groups discussed what to do if someone asks you to take “a less than appropriate” photo to post online.  Many said they’d take the photo as the person asked, for decisions about using it were the responsibility of the other person.  Were they saying that they were hesitant to turn down a friend’s request even though they knew taking the photo was not a good idea? Another question tackled in the sessions was what to do if you receive a nude photo from a girl you know. Most said that they would not forward the photograph. They expressed confusion about what to do with the photo and why some girls think sending out photos like this is a good idea.  The librarian wondered if discussions would be different if the sessions were coed and how honesty would be affected. The sessions focused upon real-life situations and moral decisions that students face today but that they don’t often get the chance to discuss and think about.  

User Generated Content on Websites: Hard to Keep Up With

User Generated Content or UGC is the stuff that users upload to blogs, social networks, discussions, evaluations of products—it's all that text, photos, images, audio, slideshows, etc. that people can upload online. It sounds like a good idea to let users upload to pages on a site or make comments, but this can be a big problem. What's uploaded might be not be appropriate, and/or it may be racist, pornographic, or bullying. It's difficult for sponsors of sites to keep up with what's posted, for the amount of content uploaded multiplies each day. Social networking sites and commercial sites often hire an army of monitors to oversee user-generated content. Some sites say they look at every photo that's uploaded. Think of the number of people hours this must take. Realizing the problems involved when trying to oversee UGC, Keibi (pronounced Kay-bee) Technologies has developed a system that can evaluate uploaded content. Keibi pulls out what it considers possible problems and gets them ready for human monitors to check. To do this, the company has developed a number of ways to check audio, graphics, video and text and how these might relate to one another. It can check to see if the person uploading has violated the site's Terms of Use in the past. Video is evaluated by breaking it down into frames and targeting the five frames with the most unfavorable score. For text, Keibi uses a semantic filter to look at word relationships. After Keibi does its work, about 20% of the content is then sent on to monitors who do the final evaluation. Results from the monitors are put back into the system to help Keibi continue to improve its evaluations. —Sounds like something that's needed to keep UGC in line with standards or Terms of Use of the organizations that encourage uploading of content.

Cell Phone Etiquette

It has been a while since we pointed you to a resource on cell phone manners but that doesn’t mean that people’s etiquette when it comes to cell phones has improved. I talk to my husband all the time about how modeling good cell phone etiquette is so important but he does have his lapses (as do I). I particularly laughed at item #4 in CNet’s tip Cell phone etiquette 101 about “using your inside voice.” How we have all complained that my husband becomes this loud lout when he is on his cell phone. There are other things on the list that you will identify with also including “Be nice to the person behind the counter” referring to how people can’t bother to get off their cell phone to place an order at a lunch counter. Or how about “You’re welcome” recounting the author’s encounters with people who can’t bother to say thank you when you open a door for them when they are on their cell phone. And then there is “Drive to distraction”…need I say more.

A Survey Reveals Social Networkers Concerned About Digital Manners

A survey released last week by the Consumer Internet Barometer, a production of TNS and The Conference Board, found that common pet peeves among social networking regulars include lack of privacy and, more interestingly, lack of "manners." While the survey doesn't delve into much detail about what people mean by the lack of manners, it is not hard to conceive of what they might be thinking about. How do you turn down a friend request without hurting the requester's feelings? What happens if you categorize someone as a "teammate" when they consider you more of a close friend? How do you avoid offending someone who doesn't make the cut as one of your "top friends?" How do you politely ask your friend to stop bombarding you with countless invites for yet another application? When should you just pick up and give someone a call versus just blowing them off with a digital message? Would love to hear your thoughts on this in regard to you and your kids.

Where Are We in Internet Safety?

It seems as if we've been writing about online safety on the Web forever, and even before the Web became so popular we were writing about safety on online services. Are we getting anywhere with keeping our children safe online? Certainly there are more programs to keep kids safe today, but there are also more problems-probably because so many more people are online and kids have learned to get around the safety nets we put out for them. Like drugs, smoking, and alcohol abuse education, we've tried scare tactics, monitoring, and reasoning. With technology, we've also tried filtering. Through it all, we've learned that we (teachers and parents) are the best Internet filters, monitors, and guides for our children-better than any program. One of the problems we face is that kids think they know so much more than we do about the Internet and think we are overreacting when it comes to their safety online. So what do we do? Because we can't watch our students all the time, we have to educate them and hope that they'll make the right decisions when we are not there to watch. What else can we do? Ideas?

Six Ways To Be a Media Savvy Parent

If you've told yourself that this year you REALLY are going to get caught up to your kids when it comes to digital savvy, you might want to start by looking at the checklist on the Common Sense Media site of six ways to get started. Once you've covered that list you can find lots more of in-depth parenting with technology tips on this site in the archives of Parenting with Technology and in Internet Smarts :What Parents Need to Know.

Hanging Out Safely on the Web

Safe Card tech and a Web site are combining to test a new idea for student digital safety.  When students go online, they insert a card with their fingerprint into the computer and are directed to a safe site where they can enjoy monitored chatting and traveling to sites that are screened for violence, nudity, solicitation, etc. The program is targeted to students 17 and under and can be put to use in homes as well as school. In schools, the card can be used for keeping track of attendance, lunch purchases, library records and more. Check out information about how Safe Card is currently being used to provide online security for purchases.