Security – SAFER INTERNET DAY & Microsoft – Offering FREE downloads

 

I have always indicated that us technical people have to try to keep those less skilled safe while on the internet.  This would be great documents to pass onto your teachers, kids parents and if you have children you should review this as well. 

Free downloads for Safer Internet Day

This year Microsoft supports Safer Internet Day by offering free events, research, and downloads to help parents, educators, and caregivers better understand kids and the video games that they play. To see Microsoft’s latest online gaming research, visit Safer Internet Day 2011.

Free downloads: Learn more about online gaming

• “Play It Safe When Gaming Online” consumer brochure – XPS | PDF
• “Microsoft Tools Help Keep Families Safer Online” consumer brochure – XPS | PDF
• Get Game Smart Family PACT (a printable agreement to make it easier for parents and kids agree on media choices) – PDF
• Safer Family Gaming & Entertainment with Xbox 360: A Simple 10-Step Guide for Parents – XPS|PDF
• Xbox 360/Kinect Safer Family Gaming Guide – XPS | PDF 

Safer Online Gaming: Perceptions and Behaviors of Gamers and Parents of Gamers (December 2010, U.S.)

Overall, parents surveyed rank the risks of online gaming for their kids low compared to other online activities. And while they report that the steps they’ve taken to help protect their children are effective, most are not using available family safety settings.

• Thirteen percent of parents ranked online gaming as their top concern compared to online chatting (43%) and browsing social networks (20%).
• Forty percent report using available family safety settings. Of those who don’t use family safety settings, 54% reported not using them because they trust their child and 53% said they don’t use them due to lack of awareness or lack of understanding how to find/use them.

Even though parents ranked the concerns of online gaming low, many gamers themselves reported experiencing abuse online—and for younger gamers, the abuse has impacted their online gaming behavior.

• One in five gamers reported experiencing abuse while gaming online.
• The results showed that gamers aged 18-24 (24%) are twice as likely as gamers under 18 (12%) to experience abuse.
• Most gamers, 71%, claim they know what to do when they encounter abuse online, but many (44%) do not report it.
• Two-thirds of gamers under 18 have either stopped playing online games or play them less due to a previous bad experience

Getting Organized – Kids need help – some Adults as well!

I think today more than any other time, being able to organize is a key life skill that we all have to MASTER! 

Technology has given us some great advancements and I improved a lives in certain ways.  The same technology that has improved our lives has also given us an always on life style – there is very little down time and way too much information for anyone to manage.

There are books and seminars that you as an adult can attend or read, but what about our kids.  How are we going to help them master this very difficult process.  For some it can be really easy, but I think for most it is something that has to be learned and our kids need our help.

Ten Ways to Help Your Child Get Organized

by Coordinated Campaign for Learning Disabilities

Developing good organizational skills is a key ingredient for success in school and in life. Although some people are by nature more organized than others, anyone can put routines and systems in place to help a child “get it together.” The Coordinated Campaign for Learning Disabilities has compiled a list of strategies that you can use to help your child get — and keep — her life under control.

1. Use checklists.
Help your child get into the habit of keeping a “to-do” list. Use checklists to post assignments, household chores, and reminders about what materials to bring to class. Your child should keep a small pad or notebook dedicated to listing homework assignments. Crossing completed items off the list will give him a sense of accomplishment.

Read more on FamilyEducation

Notebook in the CLOUD – 10th Grade Students – TEAM Resource – Evernote

If you have been reading this blog you know I am user of Evernote and starting to use it more as I learn from others on just how powerful this tool can really be.

On the Evernote BLOG there was a great story about how a TEACHER introduced Evernote to her students for a specific project and they love it and have started educating other students as they all feel it’s a great tool.

Why I chose Evernote

I felt Evernote would be a perfect solution for the students’ need to archive and organize traditional and non-traditional sources of information. In addition to the more common features, Evernote offered some specific ones that made it the perfect tool for what we would be using it for. These included:

• Handwritten notes – Students could take handwritten notes if they preferred and still add them to their research by scanning or taking a snapshot.
• Flexibility – Students could use Evernote on their smartphones with apps available for iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android, as well as at home using any computer they had access to.
• Sharing – Students could make their notebooks public and import the RSS feed into Google Reader, iGoogle, or Netvibes.
• Email – The unique email address every user gets is very useful for adding things to your account from different places.

FULL ARTICLE –

How my students started using Evernote – Education Series 

Security – Keeping Kids SAFE – Filtering Emails & Soon Social Media

Something all parents want to do is keep our kids safe from cyberbullying, sexting and inappropriate messages which is very difficult.   There are a lot of things we can do, but we all need something else. 

Soon there will be a program called MouseMail that can filter messages on your kids smartphones.  Most kids will not be happy about it, but when are they when we as parents try to protect them from others and themselves.

ARTICLE – USATODAY – MouseMail filtering program traps kids’ cyberbullies

MouseMail’s free Web-based e-mail features will be available Thursday at MouseMail.com; the free text message filtering applications will launch that day on most major smartphones, with Apple iPhone expected to add the app soon. Later this month, a premium service will be added (no price set) that monitors social networks and lets parents look for mentions of their kids’ names.

HOW IT ALL WORKS:

• Parents add children’s e-mail accounts into the family profile page on MouseMail.com’s portal.

• MouseMail checks each e-mail against a list of approved contacts and a dictionary of suspicious or inappropriate words.

• E-mails that do not include suspicious words or phrases and are sent from approved e-mail contacts pass on to the child’s e-mail account. on Google, Yahoo or other e-mail sites. Questionable e-mails are sent to parents.

• Parents download an app to a child’s smartphone and set up the program so that they are forwarded questionable text messages. Parents can get alerts about e-mail and text messages online or on their own cellphones

MOUSEMAIL.COM

Educate – Kids today to Save them from themselves Later! Energy Drinks & Alcohol

This is for sure not a technology post, but I believe it’s important.

For most of you this is not a reality yet as the kids your might be dealing with are hopefully too young to be drinking alcohol.  They can certainly get energy drinks and this should also be limited and controlled.   Habits started today will continue when they can drink alcohol and they will!

I have tried a few energy drinks – just to try…  I have heard about Alcoholic Energy Drinks and always thought it was a bad combination.  Well the FDA is looking at this currently as there has been a number of deaths due to the consumption of this type of product.  This I had not heard about till I read the New York Times article – F.D.A. Expected to Act on Alcoholic Energy Drinks.

This is great news that they are moving forward, though a number of experts believe too slow in doing something about it.  Well truly it has to be only the START of the process,  I say this because kids will be kids and they will buy the two products and do the mixing themselves.  I was at an event a few months ago at a BAR and guess what was served up as an optional mix for your alcohol You guessed it – A ENERGY DRINK – you mix it and drink it!

Stopping the Alcoholic version is not going to solve anything – once again kids will be kids and all we can do is make sure they are aware and hopefully they make the right decisions.  I guess we can make it harder to got the product – I would think any store on campus should not be selling Energy Drinks, but again as with everything else – they will get it somewhere.

New York Times article – F.D.A. Expected to Act on Alcoholic Energy Drinks.

Education – Education and knowledge is what our kids need!

Related Articles

• The Case Against Banning Four Loko (dailyfinance.com)

Technology used Right! Keep attention – Keep on track – Keep them Alert!

I always like when technology is used and it gives a huge return in kids education.  Yes it means changing the way your lesson plans are presented, yes it means being creative and a little more work in preparation – but doesn’t the end result justify the investment.  It can even make your job of teaching more enjoyable and rewarding when you see more kids staying on track and engaged in the class.  At the end of the day we want the kids to leave school each day with some understanding, some new insight and thinking about and growing in some manner.

I have heard and seen advertising for these clickers for sometime, but never really understood just how valuable these could be.  I thought it was just another technology gimmick!  How could these really be used to keep kids on track and gaining their full attention throughout a lesson.   What a great article that ran today in New York Times, talking about how many Universities are utilizing this technology to do just that!  About half-million students are using them today.

EVANSTON, Ill. — If any of the 70 undergraduates in Prof. Bill White’s “Organizational Behavior” course here at Northwestern University are late for class, or not paying attention, he will know without having to scan the lecture hall.

Many kids don’t really like these clickers, while others believe it helps them keep on track and do what they really should be doing in class. 

Though some Northwestern students say they resent the potential Big Brother aspect of all this, Jasmine Morris, a senior majoring in industrial engineering, is not one of them.

“I actually kind of like it,” Ms. Morris said after a class last week. “It does make you read. It makes you pay attention. It reinforces what you’re supposed to be doing as a student.”

Take a read of the entire article to really get a good understanding – the key is to incorporate the clickers into your lesson plan and get the kids involved throughout the lesson.  This approach I believe can be used for any grade as it puts technology in the hands of the child that is more than a little familiar in using it already.

NEW YORK TIMES – More Professors Give Out Hand-Held Devices to Monitor Students and Engage Them

Technology at it’s best!

Facebook – Security – Kids & Parents – What you need to know and DO!

 We all know Facebook can be a great resource, lots of fun and a great method to stay in touch with friends, family and classmates from years ago.  The truth is Facebook can be a very dangerous place for not only kids, but everyone!  This is a social community and there are good and bad in all communities.

Every teacher and parent have to educate our young and make sure they are not on the wrong side of the street or are the one’s being taken advantage of in any way.  There has been many stories of all sorts of negative stuff happening on Facebook concerning the young.

For teachers and Parents to educate kids, they have to understand what it is all about. They need to know how kids are using this tool, how they may be taken advantage of and all the other dangers they are exposed to online.

I will dedicate a page on my BLOG with resources and information around this very important topic – A great start is the following article.

TODAY – a great paper was released called – A Parents Guide to Facebook

What are the risks involved in social networking?

Youth-risk research has recently made five important findings:

1. Young people who behave aggressively online are more than twice as likely to be victimized online, so children’s own behavior in Facebook or any social site is key to their well-being on the social Web.
2. The most common risk young people face online is peer harassment or aggression – in other words hurtful, harassing, or defamatory behavior.
3. A child’s psychosocial makeup and environment (for example, home and school) are better predictors of risk than any technology that the child uses, so…
4. Not all children are equally at risk online, and the children who are most at risk online are those who are most at risk in “real life,” or offline. 
5. Although, for the vast majority of youth, online social networking is largely a reflection of offline life, it can also amplify, perpetuate and widely distribute real-life problems or conflicts – very rapidly. Something posted in anger or on impulse is extremely difficult to take back, so it has never been more important for users (of any age) to think before they “speak,” post, or send a text message.

 Specific social networking risks include…

● Posting information about themselves that: a) could help strangers determine their physical location; b) could be used to manipulate them; or c) whether posted by them or others, could cause psychological harm or jeopardize reputations and future prospects

● Harassment or online bullying (“cyberbullying”) on the part of your children or others’

● Spending too much time online, losing a sense of balance in their activities (“too much” is subjective, which is why parents need to be engaged)

● Exposure to inappropriate content (this too is subjective), although typically worse content can be found out on the Web at large than in Facebook or other responsible social networking sites

● Potential for inappropriate contact with adults (parents need to ensure that social networking does not lead to offline contact unapproved by them and other caring adults in their children’s lives)

● Damage to reputation or future prospects because of young people’s own behavior or that of their peers – unkind or angry posts, compromising photos or videos, or group conflict depicted in text and imagery.

FULL Document – PARENTS GUIDE TO FACEBOOK

Eating HEALTHLY – a key to better choices – What can you do!

I read an article from the New York Times today and was surprised that just making simple changes to the layout of the food with little to no expense could make such a dramatic change in choices kids make when buying their lunch.

Take a look at the ARTICLE  / Picture

Protect your PC and DATA – simple steps to stay safe!

Some simple steps to take today to protect your family data and computers from the ever-increasing threat of infections….

1) Install anti-virus / spyware software – but remember you have to keep these up to date

2) Update your software – Setup up Microsoft Auto update and keep everything current.

3) Use strong passwords and keep them secret (14 characters long, using letters, numbers and symbols)

4) Never turn off your Firewall on your computer

5) Setup your router in a secure method to stop people using your bandwidth, but also keep people out of your network.

6) Use Flash drives carefully – Make sure any key your using, you know where it has been

7) Don’t download malware

Be very cautious about opening attachments or clicking links in email or IM, or in posts on social networks (like Facebook)—even if you know the sender. Call to ask if a friend sent it; if not, delete it or close the IM window.

Avoid clicking Agree, OK, or I accept in banner ads, in unexpected pop-up windows or warnings, on websites that may not seem legitimate, or in offers to remove spyware or viruses.

• Instead, press CTRL + F4 on your keyboard.
• If that doesn’t close the window, press ALT + F4 on your keyboard to close the browser. If asked, close all tabs and don’t save any tabs for the next time you start the browser.

Only download software from websites you trust. Be cautious of “free” offers of music, games, videos, and the like. They are notorious for including malware in the download

Get the full article from Microsoft with full details on each topic

How to boost your malware defense and protect your PC

Malicious Software – What are you doing about it? Security!

One of those things we say we should do and don’t…  My computer at home is only used by me, so I am confident that I will not do something silly and get infected.  My other systems in the house is another story – my wife and two daughters use this and you never know what might happen.  You need to keep yourself safe when on the WEB, if you don’t do a few basic things you just might end up getting infected and that is not fun.  Sometime you can get it removed and go on, other times you have to start from scratch which could mean losing information or just a lot of time or money to get it done.

First off everyone should have Antivirus software running and keeping it up to date.

You should also be running a Malicious Software Removal Tool regularly to ensure no one has done something they shouldn’t have….This advice was too late for my father-in-law whose system got infected bad!  All antivirus software is shut down, no internet access at all in order to download the MSRT either.  I am hoping the USB ports are not shut down as well as I am hoping to load up the MSRT from a USB key – we will have to see!

Microsoft – Malicious Software Removal Tool

The Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool is a free malware scanner and remover which is updated every first Tuesday of each month. The tool (mrt.exe) is located in the system32 directory of Windows and it silently scans the computer after being updated via Windows Update. MRT or MSRT does not run to scan the system all the time but any PC user can manually scan the PC to check the system from Trojans, worms and other malware that MRT can identify. Note that MRT does not detect all type of threats but was developed by Microsoft to detect and remove malware that is in the wild, especially from worms that targets vulnerable components in Windows.

Related Articles

• Microsoft Tool Now Roots out Zeus Malware (pcworld.com)