Digital Share and Security

I woke up with a nasty nightmare. I'm sure, like most nightmares, it came from a combination of factors including a parent question, a scary writing post I read, and disturbing spam that creeped onto my personal website. Hence, I woke up with renewed interest in digital share and security.

It is a digital world, and we're not turning back to a non-digital world.  There are many advantages to the digital world, advantages I've written about numerous times in multiple blog posts, but there are also disadvantages--disadvantages that many use to negate the positive affects of digital tools and processes.

Today, I want to discuss the negative aspects of the digital world with a bit more depth.  Just as we protect and guide our children in the real world, we have to guide and protect our children in the digital world too. Prohibiting digital use will not teach children how to use digital tools with care, enjoyment, and purpose, and in fact, a lack of appropriate digital use, I fear, will set children up for greater danger. Instead, I continue to believe in guided digital use at young ages. Digital use that follows these actions:

• Never put private information on the Internet. Use initials or first name only at a young age, or possibly a pen name.  
• Use photos sparingly. There are times, I still believe, that using a photo is important and beneficial, but in most cases, for young children, avatars, illustrations, and free to use web images serve the purpose well.
• Use selected share for student work and projects. Use your good judgement and family's guidance with regard to share. Be transparent about share, and open to critique by the learning community.
• Allow families to opt out of share for their child--there may be many reasons why a family would do this, reasons they may not want to share.
• Keep digital use in public areas in the home and school so parents and teachers can check in often.  
• Keep an open dialogue about digital use and frequent check-ins regarding students' computer use. This keeps the topic current and the lines of communication open. 

We want our students to be safe, and we also want them to be knowing, smart, savvy digital citizens. Hence in the early years, the best use is guided use both in school and at home.

Added Note:
Last night my own teenage son has a disturbing social media experience. He was home sharing a story that was coming from his texts. We were all hearing the story text-by-text and empathizing with the situation. Then a parent, who was watching the texters tell the story, called me and told me that the story was untrue and she was watching the prank unfold. That call gave us a chance to talk to our son, put the event in perspective with a reminder of the "The Boy Who Cried Wolf Story," and caution that what's online is often untrue, so be careful. What went wrong here is that a few kids used texting inappropriately, and what went right here was that there was open parent communication throughout the situation which prevented anything too unfortunate. This story probably added to my nightmare too--a conflagration of events luckily in a dream and not real life.