- What steps can you take to make sure you have control of your online information? Why is it important to lock privacy settings and set strong passwords?
As a middle school teacher and a parent of a middle school and elementary school child, I find it difficult to read articles about digital privacy without my heart starting to race! My one child currently loves how-to art videos and another loves Magic the Gathering podcasts and online research, but despite their (for now) rather innocent uses of tech, they have still already encountered privacy issues online . Technology is at our kids’ and our fingertips and learning how to navigate it safely and respectfully is essential ongoing learning.
We share a lot of information online without thinking about it, but a few changes in settings and online behaviours could make a difference in better controlling information.
Firstly and perhaps most importantly, web browsers and social media apps have settings that one can go through to restrict what information is shared. Turning your location off is one important way that you can stop companies from tracking your movements and behaviour. I have my phone set so that I can temporarily turn on location when needed.
This is even important for devices with cameras. If we do not turn off location on our devices, photos that are shared online will identify location. This is a safety issue, especially for children. Settings on both cameras and on social media platforms such as Instagram have settings that can allow the user to turn off Geo-Location (Safer Schools Together, 2020).
Another step we can take in controlling our information is passwords on our phones, etc. While this may seem obvious to adults, kids don’t always put passwords on their devices. Once a device is open all personal info can be accessed.
Another aspect of sharing photos and information online is to be avoid signs, obvious locations or names that can identify people, especially children. I recently posted a photo of my kids with our new puppy- a lovely family photo. When I looked back at it, I realized my son was wearing his middle school hoody. Someone who wanted more information could likely very quickly narrow down where my child lived based on the photo and the hoody.
Lastly, third party cookies track interests and sites visited, likes, and all digital moves. You can learn more about how to block cookies by using a free program called Ghostery (Imagine Easy Solutions, 2014)
Finally, the main way to control your online information is to think about your digital footprint and create digital social boundaries, in order to ensure that anything you post online fits with what you are ready to share with the world. This is an essential part of digital safety that can be taught to students from a young age and continue right through adolescence.
Digital citizenship is essential teaching in our roles as teachers and TLs. What I have found teaching these skills in middle school is that students often feel that they are experts by grade 8, even though there is so much more to consider and learn. My question is therefore, how can we teach digital citizenship from elementary through high school without making it feel repetitive and patronizing to our students? How can we reach older students and help them continue to buy in to the importance of thinking of their digital social boundaries?
References:
Common Sense Media (n.d.) Everything You Need to Teach Digital Citizenship. Common Sense Media (website). Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship
Imagine Easy Solutions (2014). What are Tracking Cookies? Youtube (Video). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4n2Syt0P4js
Ministry of Education (2020). Raising Digitally Responsible Youths: A Parents’ Guide. Safer Schools Together. Retrieved from https://saferschoolstogether.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Raising-Digitally-Responsible-Youth-Guide-2020.pdf
Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada (n.d.). Social Smart: Privacy, the Internet and You. Retrieved from http://www.sms.sd23.bc.ca/Students/PublishingImages/social_smarts.pdf
Technology in the language learning classroom and library 