We talked about how bullying causes an imbalance of power and put ourselves in the shoes of parents who can’t always see the signs of cyberbullying until it has gone on for a while.

Overall a great conversation with input from almost every 6th grade student. Definitely a conversation worth having around a dinner table some time soon.

There are some computer games that have internet access. In most of those games, guess what people do? They swear. Now even though they know its bad, they still do it. Luckily for those people that don’t swear the computer automatically covers up the swear words or words and turns them into symbols like a dollar sign or an exclamation point. Want to know something? There are even some people who act the opposite when they are on the internet then when they are in the real world. Now that I have your attention, let’s talk about some issues related to Digital Identity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_identity
What is Digital Identity? “Digital Identity is an aspect of digital technology that is concerned with the connection of people’s experience of their real life identity and the identity of other people online”. Digital Identity opens a door that when people go through it makes them act worse than they are. My personal thought is that this is bad because when the people go through that door it makes them worse not better and the world needs those people to get better not worse. If anything could be done to prevent these kinds of actions, it would be that all the websites that were the source of the bad behavior should be deleted or they could be given redirection to a special manner website that teaches them… Netiquette! Warning: if the sources of the bad stuff should be deleted, it will greatly affect freedom of speech in a negative way.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9896576-7.html
Chinese authorities in the Beijing University area put a ban on online bad behavior. Examples of such bad behavior are online swearing and rumor spreading. The authorities shut down the websites responsible for the bad behavior. I personally think that that this is a good way to stop online bad behavior, but I also see a disadvantage to this method. The good side to this is that it prevents online bad behavior such as swearing and rumor spreading, but the bad side to it is that even though it’s preventing this kind of stuff it limits the freedom of speech those that go online.

http://www.rediff.com/netguide/2003/jun/09manners.htm
There are some people that think that people who chat online should spread their politeness beyond the dining table and to the online world of the internet. Some people listen to this and some don’t. Those who don’t often act strange or odd when they are in their chatting areas. Some examples of being strange while chatting are using all capital letters or pausing a lot while those people are chatting. There are people out there like Virginia Shea who has a manner website that teaches Netiquette. This is a much better option than shutting down websites. Here is a website that teaches people manners:
http://www.albion.com/netiquette/index.html

The whole moral that I have written here is that swearing online is bad and you shouldn’t do it and that being polite online is good and that you should DO THAT! If people misuse technology then that makes life worse for everybody else. I personally think that Digital Identity is a gateway to a good and bad future. Basically I am saying that Digital Identity is both good and bad. Bad because it cause people to make another identity or identities and these other selves hide their true identity so they can act bad. Despite being all this bad stuff I don’t think that the websites should be shut down.

I got to go on a super sneak preview on Tuesday night as part of the Citizens’ Telecommunications and Technology Advisory Board. Here is a photo panorama taken with my cell phone of the EOC main floor.

They have biometric identification scanners that control security!

They have lots of flat screen televisions!

They have lots of cameras and a sophisticated monitoring system!

They actually let me control the entire facility!

For the next few weeks in tech we’ll be mirroring this project, using Google SketchUp - a free 3-D modeling program. Finished products will be posted on the projects page and will be displayed next to their real-world counterparts at the Arts Festival in June.

8th grade student Michael created a short video game that illustrates this problem.

Special thanks to artist Chris Jordan for permission to use his incredible photo of discarded cell phones.

For more information, check out the EPA’s “cell phone life cycle poster.”

Boolify.org - this site is a visual Boolean search engine that looks cool but doesn’t do anything we can’t do using our Boolean operators in a regular search engine.

Homework - in middle school, homework is not optional.  Teachers assign homework to reinforce concepts, look for areas where additional support is necessary, to get boring stuff out of the way so class time can be used to learn and interact and grow.  Not Optional.

Typing - in general, this is the most successful typing term yet.  Almost everyone is keeping up with assignments and, surprisingly, everyone practicing regularly is getting better at it!

Paper, paper, everywhere! - students spend the bulk of class examining our paper usage at this school.  There is an amazing amount of paper left at printers around school - misprints, forgotten documents, and pages with very little ink on them.  We came up with a few different plans of action:

1. If you print a mistake, it can be scratch paper!  There is a repository on Jac’s desk, and also bins in the math rooms.  This can be used for math calculations, doodles, paper airplanes and more.
2. By using “Print Preview” instead of “Print”, we can see how many sheets we are about to print and either alter the text size, or choose specific pages instead of “printing all.”
3. We can copy and paste text into Word, where margins can be changed, font-size adjusted, images and advertisements deleted, and more.

We calculated that if each student at Billings could print ONE less sheet per day, then the school could save 17,460 (1×97x180) sheets of paper a year!!!! This doesn’t even include the teachers’ paper usage. According to Conservatree, 1 tree can make 8,333 pages of paper, so we could easily save 2 trees a year!

• they feel bad about themselves
• they have been bullied in the past
• they don’t have friends
• they are unhappy at home
• it makes them feel powerful
• they might make friends by being funny and mean

We talked about how humans usually feel that on the whole they are good, and that even when we do bad things we individually feel that we are more good than bad. This is true even for bullies.

The 6th grade defined cyber-bullying as “being mean or hurting someone using technology.” Cyber-bullies can use many types of technology to pick on someone; students noted the following ways:

• text-messaging
• instant messaging
• emailing
• building a website that makes fun of someone
• posting mean pictures or videos about someone
• saying mean things on MySpace

We talked about different ways that messages can be delivered. In a one-to-one format, bullies send a message to their recipient (email, instant message, text-message, etc). In a one-to-many format, bullies send a mean message about a person or people to many, usually in an effort to recruit more people to make fun of the victim (building a webpage, posting a video, etc). In many-to-one instances, a group of people will pick on an individual (incoming messages to a MySpace account, online petitions, etc).

Finally, we pondered why so much bullying goes on at social networking sites (e.g., MySpace, Facebook). The main reasons (according to students) are:

• there aren’t many adults to monitor things
• it’s easier to make fun of someone you don’t know or can’t see
• other people might be doing it so it seems okay

Overall, this was a really interesting class - we’ll be following up on this discussion in another week, before the summer starts.

A digital identity is who you are online, on your phone, on your credit card, anything digital. Maybe it’s your real name, maybe a nickname. It’s what computer you use; what sites you go on. It’s your phone number; your AIM screen name, anything you have that’s digital. I think that young children, differing in age from child to child, should have their parents know what sites they go on, who they are calling, to keep their digital identities, and real identities, safe.

I think having a list is a useful thing to do, especially for things like keeping people safe. On one site I went to, there was an actual guideline for keeping yourself safe, for kids! It had some ten useful rules, and here are three of them

1. I will not give out personal information such as my address, telephone number, parents’ work address/telephone number, or the name and location of my school without my parents’ permission.
2. I will tell my parents right away if I come across any information that makes me feel uncomfortable.
3. I will never agree to get together with someone I “meet” online without first checking with my parents. If my parents agree to the meeting, I will be sure that it is in a public place and bring my mother or father along.’

It’s a good guideline, for children and parents both, for teens and toddlers. It can help young kids know what’s safe, and it can remind the older kids of it, too.

With a device that can be installed on phones, called Radar, parents and others can make sure that their kids are safe. If anyone calls who isn’t on their approved list, they are sent a text message. This could be a good thing. For example, if their children were being harassed and didn’t know what to do, their parents would know about it and they could help.

However, Radar could also not be a good thing. Kids should have a bit of privacy, without their parents completely running their lives. If they get interrogated about every one of their friends that their parents didn’t know, it would get very tiresome to keep telling their parents, who called; what they knew that person from, and all that. Their parents should trust them a bit, and maybe not have such an extreme grip on them, as to monitor their phone calls.

In conclusion, kids should get some freedom, and some safety. I believe that as you get older, your parents should give you more freedom, especially if you use that freedom responsibly. From cell phones to using the internet, you need some privacy, but some safety.

Articles:
Here are two very similar lists of Kid Online Safety Rules:
http://www.safekids.com/kidsrules.htm
http://www.microsoft.com/protect/family/age/upto10.mspx
Here is a site about parents being able to track their children’s phone calls.