Cyber Safety Presentation

Here is some information I received from the Michigan CSI (Cyber Safety Initiative) on the presentation that all SCMS students will be seeing this Thursday.

Dear Parent or Guardian:

The Michigan Attorney General's office will be conducting Internet safety presentations for East China School District students in grades 1-8 during the week of November 1-5, 2010 A one-hour seminar for adults is being offered at the East China Administrative Office at 7:00 p.m. on November 2, 1010.

The first through third-grade presentation includes a video of the acclaimed book Faux Paw's Adventures in the Internet. The book and seminar material are being presented in cooperation with the Internet Keep Safe Coalition. The primary focus is to emphasize students should: keep safe by not sharing any personal information; keep away from Internet strangers; and keep telling parents or a trusted adult about everything they see on the Internet – especially when something makes them uncomfortable. The message is delivered in a child-friendly, appropriate manner.

In addition to the keep safe, keep away, and keep telling messages, students in fourth grade and above also learn about common dangers on the Internet and appropriate responses to cyber harassment. Fourth and fifth-grade students watch a realistic fiction video provided compliments of the nonprofit group i-SAFE Inc. Sixth through eighth-grade students are also cautioned about revealing personal information on social networking sites and watch i-SAFE videos.

The parent seminar on November 2, 2010 will provide practical tools, including a PowerPoint handout of slides covered during the seminar, to help adults employ these new skills at home. The seminar provides concrete tools including information on how to access online tutorials to:

• search and access a child's social networking site(s) (i.e., MySpace and Facebook);
• view Internet history logs to determine where a child has been online; and
• turn on safe surfing filters.

Handouts used during our presentations can be accessed at the Attorney General's website - www.michigan.gov/ag.