Week 14

I watched several articles on internet safety, and one of the things I thought was interesting was cyber bullying--I didn't know that was even a concern on the internet! the fact that almost half of the children who use the internet have been bullied online and that a third have actually been threatened while only really shocked me. That's a very scary statistic, and it has probably escalated since the data was collected. Cyber bullying is definitely something I will want my students to be aware of, so I will most likely have a direct lesson on it in class and periodically follow up on it. I also want the students to be able to trust me and know that if they do run into a situation that scares them, they can tell me and we can take care of it.

It was also great to read the article from Elder Ballard about choosing the media we watch at pay attention too. I liked the 7 guidelines and how he encouraged us as adults to personally follow them as well as enforcing it among the growing children of today. This was the main topic of discussion between my aunt (31) and I. She has one little boy who is almost 5 years old, and the guidelines really put into perspective what she was watching and what she wants her son to watch. She just wasn't sure how to go about doing that and what sites to used. We went through a couple sources and then decided to ask some others in the family what they do. We called over my cousin (27) who has two children of her own and asked her how she is dealing with the growing technological world and the media being produced. She said she pre-screens movies or television shows. She also has set up a system known as K9 which literally barks when someone goes to a site not in your specified perameters. I thought that was really cool as well.