[This blog post originally appeared on Good Digital Parenting.] With summer vacation looming (but not fast enough for the kids!), parents are once again confronted with the question of how to keep their children occupied, entertained, and safe during the long break. The challenge of keeping kids safe is a little more complicated than it…
In a press release issued June 2, Acting United States Attorney John E. Kuhn, Jr. (W.D. Kentucky) announced that his office had arrested Patrick Newman, 35, and charged him with violating child exploitation laws. Prior to the announcement by Kuhn, Newman taught Social Studies at Trinity High School, an all-boys Catholic school located in Louisville,…
Out of the far northeast of England comes a disturbing report, courtesy of a Freedom of Information request filed by the Daily Mail. Over the last year, the Northumbria Police have investigated a number of sexting cases involving children as young as 10, 11, and 12 years of age. The Northumbria Police force is one…
A team of researchers has published a paper in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest in which they argue that the vast majority of the so-called educational apps available today are the mental equivalent of junk food. The report, entitled “Putting Education in ‘Educational’ Apps: Lessons From the Science of Learning,” is available…
Sixteen months ago, David Byttow and Chris Bader created an app called “Secret” that was designed to permit users to anonymously share information with other users, friends, and contacts. The app and the concept of anonymous gossip proved popular: Secret gained as many as 15 million users in a fairly short time, and at the…
According to the Polaris Project, one of the leading organizations in the battle against human trafficking, cases occur in every one of the nation’s fifty states. Even tiny Vermont, not typically thought of as a front-line location for human trafficking, has seen trafficking cases involving the sex trade, farming, and restaurants. Dustin Duncan, an assistant…
My 30th College Renuion was held at Amherst College at the end of May, and I had the honor of being asked to participate in a panel discussion about the risks facing teens today. Here’s the description from the College Web site: Protecting Vulnerable Adolescents: Cyber-Bullying, Sports-Related Concussions and Other Tough Stuff Saturday, May 30,…
[This blog post originally appeared on Good Digital Parenting.] It comes as a shock to most new parents, flushed as they are with the excitement of new life, that parenting is not all sunshine and bunnies. Sleep deprivation is the first clue, but the real wake-up call occurs when the little angel does something that…
[This blog post originally appeared on Good Digital Parenting.] There are few moments in a child’s life that are more momentous than when he or she first learns to read. When a child learns how to decipher the odd squiggles on a printed page (or increasingly, a digital screen), it opens up an enormous world…
2014-04-24 The Age of SnapPrivacy from Frederick Lane A brief overview of the history of personal privacy and the impact of technology delivered at the Cyber Privacy Symposium at Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY on April 24, 2014. Included is a discussion of what actually constitutes privacy. If you are interested in discussing a presentation or…
