LCPS, City Teaching Cyber-Safety
By Diana M. Alba, Las Cruces Sun-News, N.M.
Jan. 21–LAS CRUCES — Fifteen-year-old Ana Karen Mendoza, like many of her counterparts at Mayfield High School, has a MySpace.com account.
“A lot of people like MySpace,” she said. “They put a lot of pictures up and write to their friends.” Mendoza said she doesn’t access the Web site very often, but she’s careful when she does use it. News reports of harassment, cyber-stalking and sexual predators on the site haven’t escaped her.
“If I know you, I’ll talk to you, but if I don’t, I won’t,” she said.
Mendoza said she’s careful not to make postings that reveal her location or give away personal information.
But while Mendoza might take steps to stay safe on the popular social networking site, not all teens or children are as savvy. Last week, a group of attorneys general, including New Mexico Attorney General Gary King, announced an agreement with MySpace that’s meant to improve safety for the site’s youngest users.
In addition, the Las Cruces school district said it’s close to launching an initiative of its own aimed at promoting Internet safety among students. The campaign, called ClickRight!, is a joint effort with the city of Las Cruces.
Marcy Oxford, technology integration specialist with the Las Cruces Public Schools, said a Web site and short educational video are being created as part of the program. Also, teachers will hand out tips for students to take home and emphasize safety measures.
“We know there’s a huge number of children that have MySpace pages and use instant messaging,” she said. “We just want to have resources available at teachers’ and parents’ fingertips, so they can know what to do to keep their students safe.” Oxford said the district blocks MySpace.com and Facebook.com from school computers.
Art Ruiloba, spokesman for the Gadsden Independent School District, said students in that district also aren’t allowed to access social networking sites at school.
Both districts pointed out, however, they can’t control what students do at home.
Some parents said they take their own precautions when it comes to Web use.
Sara Miller, 34, of Las Cruces has a 12-year-old daughter who attends Picacho Middle School.
“She’s not allowed to go on MySpace,” Miller said. “She has her own e-mail account, but she has to post her password (for me).” Miller said she has concerns someone might be able to steal information or otherwise misuse it, if she allowed her daughter to create a MySpace page.
Las Crucen Eva Whelan, 35, takes a similar approach. She said her 13-year-old daughter asked last year for permission to create a MySpace account.
“She wants one, but I didn’t allow her to,” Whelan said. “It’s a very popular Web site, but it’s dangerous.” Miller said she approves of the district’s attempt to promote online safety.
“Hopefully it will be well received by parents and students,” she said.
“Hopefully it will be well researched and well done.” Oxford said often students and parents alike don’t realize the potential hazards that go along with social network sites. Basic tips for students, she said, include never posting phone numbers, addresses, the name of a person’s school, or photos that would identify someone’s home.
“Never make it easy for an outsider or a predator to easily find you geographically,” she said.
Oxford also advised that parents keep the family computer in a living area, rather than a student’s bedroom, to easily check up on children’s online activities.
Among other steps announced last week, MySpace plans to create a registry that will allow parents to submit their children’s e-mail addresses, effectively blocking them from being used to create an account. In addition, a task force will be set up to look at ways to verify a person’s age. Now, children can circumvent the site’s minimum age requirement — 14 years old — by lying about when they were born.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott was the only attorney general of the 50 in the United States not to sign onto the agreement with MySpace. He said he didn’t believe it went far enough toward ensuring a reliable age-verification system was in place.
Oxford acknowledged that verifying a person’s age could prove difficult, but she said that’s even more reason to educate students about social networking sites and online safety.
“Knowledge is power, and unless children know about the dangers, they’re not intuitively going to safeguard themselves.”
MY SPACE TIPS FOR PARENTS
–Talk to your children about why they use MySpace or other social networking sites, how they communicate with others and how they represent themselves on MySpace.
–Kids shouldn’t lie about how old they are. MySpace members must be 14 or older.
–MySpace users shouldn’t post anything they don’t want the world to know.
Children should avoid information that indicates their geographical location, such as addresses and hang-out spots.
–Remind kids not to post information that could embarrass them later or expose them to danger.
–Ask your children to be careful about adding strangers to their “friends” list.
–If your children encounter harassment, hate speech or inappropriate content using the site, they should let you know.
Source: www.wiredsafety.org
ON THE NET
–WiredSafety.org: http://www.wiredsafety.org
–MySpace: http://www.myspace.com
–Facebook: http://www.facebook.com
–How to remove your child’s MySpace page: http://www1.myspace.com/misc/RemovingChildProfiles.html
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