Digital Citizenship and Online Safety course

Google is providing a training course for Teachers on Digital Citizenship and Safety. This course helps teachers understand why this topic is needed for students as well as resources to share with students while teaching and modeling digital citizenship and safety. 

To take the course go to https://edutrainingcenter.withgoogle.com/digital_citizenship/course. 

And make sure to check out their other training and certification courses at https://edutrainingcenter.withgoogle.com/. 

Kiddle Safe Search

Kiddle offers a safer search engine for students than just a regular Google search. According to their site, approximately the first 7 sites returned are either specifically written for kids or are simple enough for kids to understand and are handpicked and checked by Kiddle editors. After that, Kiddle lets Google safe search take over.

Kiddle also offers big thumbnails which make it easier for young students to scan the results they are looking for. 

There are also ways to suggest site blocking and keyword blocking so as inappropriate results do make it past the safe search, parents and teachers have a way to report that information.

Searched for Alamo. See the pictures and larger fonts.

Searched for bikini and was not allowed results. However, a search for Kardashian did produce bikini photos.

So is this safer than any other search engine. I think it is as safe as it can be and works to become safer. The responsibility still is there to teach students about digital citizenship and Internet safety. Do your students know what to do when they find a result that makes them uncomfortable or they know is inappropriate? 

Give Kiddle a try and see what you think. http://kiddle.co/

Digital Citizenship

A great article by Vicki Davis (@coolcatteacher) titled "What Your Students Really Need to Know About Digital Citizenship" was on the Edutopia site last year. Not sure how I missed it.

In the article, Vicki shared the "9 Key Ps" she uses with students learning digital citizenship.
1. Passwords
2. Privacy
3. Personal Information
4. Photographs
5. Property
6. Permission
7. Protection
8. Professionalism
9. Personal Brand

A great list and an article worth reading. Take a look

www.edutopia.org/blog/digital-citizenship-need-to-know-vicki-davis 

SafeShareTV

http://safeshare.tv/ 

SafeShare.TV is an easy way to share YouTube videos without all of the extra clutter, like suggested videos and possible inappropriate comments. It isn't that the video itself is bad, but sometimes inappropriate material shows up in these places.

Look up your video on YouTube. Copy the URL. Go to http://safeshare.tv/  and paste the link in the field.
Then, click the Generate Safe Link button. SafeShare will create your link that you can now give to students or post on your website, blogs, or favorite social media.

Now you can watch the video without the distractions. http://safeshare.tv/w/IgZhQgxXDX
 There is even a Share/Save button to share directly to social media.


YouTube Example

SafeShare.TV example of the same video