In the fall of 2014, a complaint was filed with the Disciplinary Tribunal of the New Zealand Teachers Council, alleging that relief teacher Leon Duffy had engaged in an inappropriate conversation with a 15-year-old 10th year student. The complaint was filed by the principal of a New Zealand high school (both unnamed) after receiving a…
[View the story “2015-06-24 #Cyberparenting Twitter Chat” on Storify]
I tell you three times: camera phones are the most significant driver of social change since the early 1960s, when television brought the street battles over civil rights into nearly every American home. We are only just beginning to appreciate the myriad ways in which the constant presence of camera phones is changing our society,…
It was with special interest that I watched last night’s segment of the John Oliver show, “Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.” In the middle of last week, I received a call from one of the show’s researchers, and had an interesting discussion about various state and federal laws that might apply to revenge porn,…
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”4″ gal_title=”2015-06-20 Coney Island Mermaid Parade”] And now for something completely different (and slightly NSFW). Every so often, just for fun, I will post slideshows of photos I’ve taken at special events or on trips. Ever since getting my first decent camera phone, I’ve been taking a lot more photos (offering support for the…
Marinko Jankovic, a 61-year-old teacher at Berwick Secondary College in Berwick, Australia (just down the road from Melbourne) is facing six months in jail on charges of surreptitiously taking upskirt photographs and videos of female students in his classroom. Although he pleaded guilty to making 106 videos over a four-year period and to possession of…
Earlier this month, I attended the initial roll-out of the proposed Model Code of Ethics for Educators at the annual convention of the National Association of State Directors of Teacher Education and Certification in Portland, Oregon. The proposed national code — a first for P-12 educators — is the culmination of a multi-year effort by…
A four-month investigation resulted in the arrest and jailing of a 39-year-old elementary school teacher named Eric Shank Van Eenige. According to Van Eenige’s public defender Sandra Bennewitz, he has taught at the Ariel Elementary Community School in Chicago’s North Kenwood neighborhood for the past decade, earning just over $85,000 per year from the Chicago…
In late March, Allstate was issued US Patent No. 2014/0080100 A1 with the relatively innocuous title of “Motor Vehicle Operating Data Collection Analysis” (see below). The legalese that is typically used in patent applications obscures some of the potentially invasive aspects of this patent. Here’s the text from the abstract (or summary) of the patent:…
This story does not describe a common cybertrap for young people, fortunately, but it does help illustrate a couple of relevant points: first, that if young people have a camera available to them at all times (as nearly 100% do), they will occasionally take photos of private activities, and second, even if those private activities…
