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Community Awareness

Community Awareness

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Taking Action in Your Community

Making sure that kids have the critical thinking skills they need to make safe and smart online decisions isn’t just a parental responsibility its everyone in our community responsibilty.

First we got to build partnerships between home and school, libraries and community groups to raise awareness and educate adults about kids’ Internet use. That's right folks we need to educate ourselves first and foremost.

Here are some tips to get you started:

1. Educate parents: After all you are the first line of defence weather your around or not. You can go to Media Awareness Network web site and download some free handouts and tip sheet and pass them out in the community. And ofcourse we here a McNamara & Associates would be willing to help out. After all "People Helping People" is what its all about.

2. Set up a technology committee in your school. Create a committee of teachers and interested parents to be responsible for:

  • assessing your current technology status.
  • working to ensure that the technology needs of all students are being met.
  • developing a plan to educate students about safe and smart use of the Internet.
  • working with the administration to establish a culture of proper use of technology in the classroom by creating guidelines for the ethical use of the Internet.
  • setting up a roster of technology-savvy parents who can volunteer in the school’s computer lab or classes.
  • ensuring that technology is being used enhance learning.
  • seeing that the school has an appropriate policy for managing offensive online content. In many cases filtering and blocking is done at the board level, in which case teachers and parents may not have a lot of input. If, however, your school is responsible for controlling Internet content, then parents should be part of the policy decision.

3. Build a class or school Web site:

Parents should be involved in what goes on such a web site. Like design, information, what kind of personality does it project; things of that nature. If need be I'd be happy to help out.

Use the Web site to foster communication, cooperation, and community among the school's parents, teachers, and students. For example, include a Parents’ Section on the site with information on Internet safety, use of technology in the school and homework assignments.

4. Organize an Internet day or week at your school

Use this tool to inform parents and the community of the dangers associated with the web. Such as cyber bullying and plagiarism.

  • Create a school blog where students can talk about what's going on in class, maybe help one another with a problem or project.
  • Launch a mentoring program where older students work with students in younger students to develop smart, fun, and safe surfing skills.
  • Develop, with input from students, "Netiquette Guidelines" to discourage cyber bullying and online harassment.

    • Send out a press release to local media so they will cover the launch of your Internet day or week.

    5. Host an Internet awareness workshop

    For parents, teachers, students, school administrators. Have Oak Lawn Police and the entire Village come in and get involved.

    These are just little things we can do that will make a huge impact. We owe it to ourselves but most of all to our kids because their safety is the most important and I'm sure you'll agree.

    Safe e-mail and chat sites for kids

     There are many kids' Web sites that have monitored chat rooms and safe, free e-mail included in their features. The following are some of them:

    KidsCom staff monitors chat on this site. Kids can also use its E-Pal service to link up with other kids around the world.

    A kid-friendly browser as well as a Web site, Surf Monkey offers secure e-mail accounts.

    Headbone Zone offers chat rooms with adult monitors who screen the conversations. The site also has e-mail and a safe search function.

    Kidzworld has chat rooms for kids and teens that are moderated by real people.

    For girls only, this site offers an e-pal service and chat rooms that require a parent's permission to join.


    Educational sites:

    ePALS offers an e-mail service that brings together students and teachers in 191 countries to foster cross-cultural learning.

    This site about animals links children in different schools through chat rooms.

    ENO is a global virtual school for environmental awareness. Schools from around the world join in moderated chats to discuss environmental issues in their countries.


    Parent Tips

    While monitored chat rooms are a much safer alternative to the "wild west" environment of unmonitored areas, keep in mind there is nothing to stop an adult from joining in and pretending to be a child. Also, in many cases monitors cannot see "private" conversations, so make sure your child always stays in the "public" area of a chat room. For more help finding good quality kids' sites, check out our sections on Great sites for kids and Kid-friendly search engines, directories and portals.

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