Protecting Children Online

My county has long had several people who have done exhaustive research before approving the use of websites requiring logins. Indeed during all 6000+ posts of mine I do not think I have done more than a handful of them talking about this topic. But two weeks ago my wife and I decided to finally give smartphones to our 8th grade daughters. While we are still not allowing them to use social media, we also know that we will soon have to use an app to monitor their online presence - be it on a smartphone, their Chromebook, Kindle or their much less used iTouch.

So here is my first, I am sure, of many posts discussing protecting our students as told from the parents side of the equation. First off a new blog I am just starting to follow is TechSavvyMamma written by a DC area mom who was an educator and technology expert. She posts every two to three days.

Secondly, here is an amazing overview of so much of what parents need to know. It starts with best practices (setting guidelines), goes through many of the most popular social media apps (Snapchat, Kik, Instagram, etc.). It then shows how you can go to settings and set up parental controls as well as mention some of the best parental apps out there to protect kids.

Speaking of what apps to use for student protection, this site and this one are a start.

While school systems can certainly not promote one site over another, giving parents information about how to best deal with online predators, not to mention deviants from doing homework and being better prepared for school is an issue that many schools are now grappling with and so I will be posting on it from time to time.

Comments

Homework Reminders

When I want to quickly contact my online students, I use Remind.com . It allows you to send a text without knowing their phone numbers. Additionally you can set a time for it to be sent. You can add a link and/or upload a document. If you choose, you can also text individual students. All of the texts are recorded and kept as long as you keep the class. Above is a video giving you a great overview and here are several videos explaining how to use different parts of it. If you use Blackboard, the video below shows you how to embed Remind texts into a Blackboard page.

How to Make Your Own Flip & Tutorial Videos

Over the years I have made lots of video tutorial for my blog followers and flip videos for my students . Every single one of them have been made using Screencastomatic . You can purchase your own yearly subscription, but I have not only never paid, but also never even set up a free account. You don't need to since you can make the video and then just upload it onto YouTube. Watch the video above and you will be able to see how to record, add you talking (or not) to the recording and to upload it - all in less than two minutes. Go forth and make your own tutorials and teach lots of others. In a later post I'll show you how to organize your YouTube video library.

Snow Days Online

So we have a potentially major snow storm coming to DC this week. I am thankful that we have the technology to make up for not having school, esp. in classes like AP or IB ones where time can't really be missed and your students are more likely to do the work at home. Of course my online students get to work no matter the weather. So how can you get your brick and mortar students to work on a snow day. For my online kids I use Blackboard Collaborate so I would create a shell for the brick and mortar students as well and set an agreed upon time to meet which I reminded them about a few days before a snow storm. If you don't have something like Blackboard Collaborate you could you a Google Plus Hangout live stream where you could send a link to your students and they could watch a live lecture ( here's how ). You could then use Today's Meet to send a link to students and you could see their live questions. You would be able to do this b...

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