Internet Safety

Internet Safety: Students and Teachers at Risk
Sallye Martin, East Fayette Elementary, Fayette County, Georgia

Internet safety for children and adults is a pressing need in 21st century learning. As a part of my ongoing education in ways to keep my students and myself safe while using connectivity, I attended Internet Safety (Including a Live Chat Session) at GaETC 2005. The session was presented by Special Agents Sue Dowling and Sandra Putnam of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They work with the agency in combating internet crime.

The session was compelling and, at times, shocking. As children use technology available, including Internet, interactive video gaming, flash drives, cell phones, digital cameras, PDAs, and other memory-capable devices, they face dangers that they are not prepared to handle without preparation. The initial portion of the presentation concentrated on Internet Safety instruction at school, security measures, and policy/procedures to make CyberSAFE environments. Agent Putnam demonstrated just how simple it is for anyone to acquire detailed personal information on other internet users. She began with a simple user nickname, deduced information about the user, showed how more could be gained through seemingly innocent messaging, and eventually was able to attain telephone number, first and last names, parents names, address, and map to the home of the young internet user.

Agent Dowling conducted real-time online chat during the presentation, most graphically showing online risks through her undercover chat room session. Most attendees were shocked at what our children face when they are online. In less than one-half hour, Agent Dowling had made good on the note to attendees printed in the session description: Some of the language used in the chat room may be graphic and distasteful (not by the agent/child but by others speaking to her). Not only was the language graphic, so was the Web camera shot that was sent to her, and thereby us, by another user who had contacted her through instant messaging. She had over one dozen people contact her through IM, though she conversed with only a few.

I left the presentation determined to evaluate the effectiveness of my classroom instruction on internet safety and to spread the word to colleagues and parents.

Seventeen months prior to the quiz, I had trained my then-fourth grade students in internet threats, guidelines, rules, and tools for safe use of technology, and acceptable use policy. Students signed an Internet Usage Agreement, kept on file in my classroom. We had carried out an identity search, much like the one conducted by Agent Putnam, on a student whose full name was used online. Students saw first-hand the vulnerability of personal information online, as we found the map of the child’s school and access to him there. Current events featuring internet dangers, from spyware, viruses, and hacking to local arrests by the internet crimes unit of the Peachtree City Police Department, have been shared by students and teacher occasionally.

New students joined the class recently and had not completed the internet safety course. All students are Web active.

The quiz consisted of 25 items. Students were challenged to list ten major or minor threats found in the use of technology, to create a list of ten rules or guidelines for safe use of connectivity, and to list places that they had learned internet safety. I divided the resulting work into three groups. The scores and group results follow.

Group Descriptions	Awareness of threats	Rules or guidelines for safe use of technology (student created)
Students I trained 17 months ago	95%	91%
New students	61%	80%
New students (without those who noted training through other internet safety courses or by tech-savvy parents)	40%	71%

I would urge other schools and teachers to begin taking steps to ensure the safety of Georgia’s children, active in Cyberspace.