acceptable use – Page 6 – Media! Tech! Parenting!

acceptable use, digital citizenship, digital parenting, digital photography, parents and technology, privacy

The Power of Instant Images, Part II: 8 Ideas to Safeguard A Personal Image

Posted on October 3, 2010February 27, 2011 by Marti Weston

Taking Digital Photos

Guidelines to Help Avoid Misunderstandings and Unintended Consequences

Ask if it is OK to take a person’s picture, especially in unconventional settings.
If you snap a picture of another individual, you own that picture, but you do not own that person’s image. You can’t automatically post a friend’s image online or in public without permission.
Avoid e-mailing, texting, or posting silly, inappropriate, or embarrassing pictures. Your lighthearted intentions may cause unexpected or unintended consequences. No one wants to be embarrassed in public, and this is the biggest way people get in trouble with digital photography. Sometimes this can even lead to accusations of cyber-bullying.
When person you know is upset or in distress, do not take a picture unless an image will help solve a problem or keep that person from getting hurt.
Carefully choose your own personal pictures for online posting. Once uploaded or e-mailed, a picture lives somewhere out on the web forever. You never really get it back, even if you delete it from a site or throw away the e-mail.
Do not modify someone’s image with Photoshop or other image editing program without that person’s permission.
Always honor the requests that an individual makes about a personal picture.
Remember that “a picture is worth a thousand words” — but you have no control of those words once an image is in cyberspace via e-mail, text, chat, or website.

acceptable use, cultural changes, digital citizenship, digital parenting, parents and technology

The Tragedy of Tyler Clementi

Posted on October 2, 2010March 20, 2019 by Marti Weston

No words console a family when a child dies, especially a loss caused by cruel and bigoted peers who don’t comprehend digital world distinctions between right and terribly wrong. A much-loved boy, a gifted musician, a young man who made others smile and relax with beautiful music — and whose sexual identity was no one’s business but his own, even in the confusing milieu of a freshman college dorm — is dead.

For the rest of us — parents, teachers, religious leaders, and other adults — much can be said. Tyler Clementi’s suicide dramatically illustrates, yet again, the youth disconnect between privacy as we knew it in the past and the increasingly few layers that protect us today. With no clear definition of privacy, children, adolescents, and even young adults perceive few behavior boundaries –those lines in the sand that delineate the ethical from the unethical, the fun from the vicious. How many more children do we have to lose?

Whatever can we do?

Continue reading “The Tragedy of Tyler Clementi” →

acceptable use, digital parenting, digital photography, image evaluation, media literacy, parents and technology

The Power of Instant Images: Digital Photography Series, Part I

Posted on September 27, 2010September 27, 2010 by Marti Weston

So your child has a new digital camera or phone, a birthday or holiday present, or a just-for-fun gift, and photos are now speeding through the virtual world in every direction — via e-mail to friends, in a Flickr album, attached to a text message, and highlighting social networking comments. Before too many pictures find they way to these and other locations, take some time for a digital photo-taking orientation — a review of guidelines and expectations. Today’s world is a vastly different place, nothing like the photo-taking environment that most adults remember from their younger days, and photos can end up in unanticipated places or cause unforseen problems.

Photography in the last ten years or so has undergone extraordinary changes. No longer do we buy and load film. Nor do we wait a few days for processing to look at our pictures. Today instant access, in terms of speed and range of circulation, defines photography. Pair this speed with the occasional child or adolescent misjudgment, and an image becomes public in moments. This impulsive image sharing can cause hurt feelings, anger, and even accusations of cyber-bullying.

Continue reading “The Power of Instant Images: Digital Photography Series, Part I” →

acceptable use, digital citizenship, digital parenting, online safety, online security, parent education, parents and technology

Visit Google Family Safety Center – Bookmark It!

Posted on September 15, 2010February 28, 2015 by Marti Weston

Comprehensive web-based resources on digital safety, cyber-bullying, media literacy, and general technology information can help parents learn more about the web and how their children use it. Most of these sites update their content daily with timely tips, strategies for parents and kids, blog postings, and other helpful links. Yet, with so many sites to choose from, parents may have difficulty keeping track of any single location, let alone navigating among the sites on a regular basis.

Now Google, as so often happens, has come up with a terrific solution — the Family Safety Center. The center is well laid out with clear explanations about safety tools and connections to many of the best digital and media safety sites — all partnering with Google.

Continue reading “Visit Google Family Safety Center – Bookmark It!” →

acceptable use, Back-to-school digital reading, cell phones, digital parenting, media literacy, parent education, parents and technology, setting technology limits

Nine Back-to-School Technology Tasks

Posted on September 3, 2010September 13, 2010 by Marti Weston

14backtoschoolgz6 — From ClipArt for Free.blogspot.com

The beginning of a school year is a good time for families to set limits, explain rules, and in general, clarify expectations about technology use. Getting started in the fall, when everyone is off to a new grade and a fresh beginning, encourages healthy technology habits.

Depending on the age of your children, you may want to accomplish some or even all of the tasks on this list, encouraging everyone to think responsibly and become committed digital citizens.

Nine Back-to-School Technology Tasks

Continue reading “Nine Back-to-School Technology Tasks” →

acceptable use, digital parenting, home computer security, online security, parents and technology

Back-to-School Digital Reading Assignment #4: Online Safety Software Doesn’t Do It All

Posted on August 30, 2010February 28, 2015 by Marti Weston

To Install or Not to Install — That is the Question!

When people ask me whether a family should install protection or filtering software at home, I always have one response. Protective software programs are fine, but limited. Yes, they keep a certain amount of inappropriate content away from children, but the problem of access to inappropriate content is not solved by simply protecting home computers and networks with software. Over the course of a day or week a child encounters many other connections to the world wide web — on laptops, smartphones, iPads, computers, in other people’s homes, and maybe even at a parent’s office. And many children simply figure out how to work around or even outwit the software.

Protecting children from bad content is critical, but they also need to know what to do and what strategies to use when confronted by the bad stuff. Does your child remember your expectations? Will he or she know what to do?

Continue reading “Back-to-School Digital Reading Assignment #4: Online Safety Software Doesn’t Do It All” →

acceptable use, Back-to-school digital reading, digital citizenship, digital parenting, parents and technology

Back-to-School Digital Reading Assignment, #2: Plagiarism

Posted on August 7, 2010August 30, 2010 by Marti Weston

In an age of instant cut and paste, copying the words or ideas of others is easy, so today many students ignore the need to credit sources. According to an August 1, 2010, New York Times article, Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age, many digital natives have difficulty understanding the concepts of attribution, intellectual property, and copyright. Moreover, the article points out that, with so much public conversation and criticism about Wikipedia, many young writers believe that crediting the online encyclopedia is unnecessary.

The Times article is a helpful back-to-school read, because it clarifies a critical issue confronting students — one that affects the quality of their work. By addressing the need to cite sources and maintain personal integrity, parents provide solid support for their children, and they help children avoid problems that arise when Internet sources in assignments without attribution. Family conversations need to occur early and often, building a child’s respect for digital citizenship.