The following are a few policies that parents might want to discuss between themselves and with their young device users before handing over their technology. Policies for Parents I/We will supervise our child when he or she is using any electronic device. I/We will make sure that our devices are configured to prevent unauthorized downloads…
On the last day of a visit to Bloomington, IN, my wife Dr. Amy Werbel and I had a very interesting lunch with Professor Bryant Paul, who teaches in the Department of Telecommunications at Indiana University – Bloomington. Professor Paul and I have widely overlapping interests, and I was pleased to hear that he has…
A rude Facebook comment, combined with some other inappropriate classroom conduct, nearly cost a Queensland, Australia teacher his license this spring. In the end, however, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal determined that Dion Ashley Paulsen had taken sufficient steps to reform his behavior and allowed him to continue teaching. Paulsen, who teaches in the…
It Does in Fact Take a Village In 1996, then-First Lady (and now presidential candidate) Hillary Clinton wrote It Takes a Village, in which she argued that the raising of successful, accomplished children is a task that requires the commitment and contributions of our entire society. The book acknowledged the central role of parents in…
Over the weekend, the New York Times published a sobering report about a case in Indiana involving a teenage boy, a teenage girl, a mobile app, and the state’s sex offender registry. It is not, as you might expect, a love story. Last December, Zachery Anderson, a 19-year-old resident of Elkhart, IN, arranged a date…
The Importance of Setting a Good Example Before you can start negotiating effective rules regarding online behavior with your older, more technologically competent children, it’s important to make sure that your own house is in order. Few things will more quickly undermine a serious conversation about safe and ethical online behavior than your child’s awareness…
Unlike most of the entries in this blog that involve teacher misconduct, this is not a story that begins or ends with high-tech malfeasance. It does, however, offer an unusually well-documented example of the role that emotional vulnerabilities can play in contributing to the various types of cybertraps that snare so many educators. According to…
Uh-oh! Jonny Can Read From a family acceptable use perspective, things start to get rapidly more challenging in grades 2-4. Three significant developments occur that will change your child’s relationship to electronic devices: First, he or she will learn to read, spell, and hunt-and-peck on a keyboard, all of which means that your child can…
Where’s My Phone? Who Took My Tablet? In a remarkably short time (thanks in large part to Steve Jobs and Apple), we’ve transitioned from “Don’t touch Dad’s computer” to “Do you want to read a Sesame Street book on the iPad?” My sons were toddlers in the mid- to late 1990s, and seeing them heading…
What Is a Family Acceptable Use Policy? A Family Acceptable Use Policy (FAUP) is a document designed to help you and your children understand the benefits and risks of using the Internet and electronic devices, and to establish household rules regarding their use. It is a document that can be used to organize and clarify…
