Staying Safe on the Internet

    The Internet is quite beneficial to many individuals, whether it's young students in elementary school, young adults in college, or any individual who needs help understanding something. The Internet can be used to communicate with loved ones, to search the World Wide Web (www), and even to learn a new language. However, there are certain dangers that come with using the Internet. These dangers include phishing and pharming, cyberbullying, textual harassment, and sexting. In this modern age, the Internet has proven quite useful and is used by many, even as young as toddlers. This is why it is important to educate students and children especially of the dangers of the Internet. The danger is that "while most stranger danger programs teach that strangers are scary and mean and want to hurt or abduct children, this contradicts the way collaboration occurs between strangers online" (Hertz, 2017). In other words, predators online know that children are told to beware of strangers and of mean hostile individuals, so many predators act nice online to gain the trust of the individual. 

    In the project assigned to us, different groups were tasked to research the different dangers of the Internet. The goal was to educate our peers on what the dangers are, how to prevent them from happening, and how to act if/when it happens to us. We were also tasked to focus on what teachers can do to educate themselves and their students of the dangers the Internet has if one is not careful. The four different topics were phishing and pharming, fair user practices and copyright issues, cyberbullying, and textual harassment and sexting. All these topics go together because they deal with the personal and private safety of every individual who falls victim to it. While listening to my peers presentations, I found myself surprised to learn many new things. I know the surface of all these dangers, but I never knew the depth and how each one can truly ruin an individual's life. I would not change anything about this assignment because it has been thoroughly thought about to properly teach future educators about the dangers of the Internet.

    When I become a teacher, I would like my students to have the ability to use all the different resources that are available for them, including the Internet. I plan on incorporating technology and the use of the Internet into my everyday lesson plan. I believe that, in this day and age, the use of technology is vital in engaging the students in what they are learning. If I want my students to use the Internet, I would need to teach them about online safety. As Mary Walton said, "All adults in a child's life have the responsibility to teach them about internet safety" (2017). I want my students to be safe and comfortable going online, and not have to worry about predators or scammers trying to infiltrate their personal and private security. To teach my students about online safety, I would engage in conversation with them first about what it means to be safe and whether or not they believe that there are people on the Internet who can cause them harm. As Walton suggested, I will get my students involved by creating a policy and having my students sign it (2017). I will show them videos and resources that explain the dangers that can be found on the Internet, such as an educational clip on BrainPop. 

    My group was assigned textual harassment and sexting. Textual harassment is the activity of sending text messages to mobile phones which insult or abuse people, while sexting is when someone sends a sexually explicit photograph or video of themselves via their mobile phone or online. We found that it is quite difficult to prevent textual harassment and sexting once someone has their mind set on it. We did, however, find a way to scare some individuals from sexting and textually harassing others. Sexting can ruin people's lives, especially the lives of teachers and individuals in authority and, most especially, individuals dealing with children. If a teacher is caught with sexually explicit images or content, their teaching license will be revoked and they will not be able to teach ever again. This definitely scared me, since I don't have to be the one sending sexual content. I can be framed and I would lose my license instantly. This is what we need to protect our future generations from, unjust violations of privacy.

    For this assignment, my group and I utilized the Google Suite Apps. When we were researching, we used Google Docs to add information simultaneously. We also used Whatsapp to communicate throughout the week. When our project was complete, we decided to use Wix to create a website displaying our findings on textual harassment and sexting. The website was extremely simple to navigate and made it easy for us to present our findings. This project helped me to understand the dangers of the Internet by researching it on my own as well as learning from watching my peers' presentations. I would not change anything in this assignment, but it would have been more effective to have the presentations face-to-face. Considering the circumstances, we did what we could. 

References

Hertz, M. B. (2017, September 28). How to Teach Internet Safety to Younger Elementary Students Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/internet-safety-younger-elementary-mary-beth-herts

Walton, M. (2017, August 31). Students and Online Safety: A Teacher's Guide - Stay Safe Online. Retrieved from https://staysafeonline.org/blog/teachers-guide-student-online-safety/