Video Transcripts

Digital Safety Presentation (Fall 2023)

12:52:03 Welcome, Holliston Public School families. We are very excited to share with you our resources for ensuring your students digital safety.
12:52:13 In this presentation, you'll learn what the school is using to keep students safe as well as resources you might consider for your students at home.
12:52:22 All of this information aligns perfectly with our strategic plan. The communication arch to expand data governance which includes student privacy and safety.
12:52:42 Here's the team that will be sharing these resources with you. My name is Dan MacLeod.
12:52:49 I'm director of technology and digital learning.
12:52:50 I'm Winnie Kerry, Technology Integration Specialist K to 5.
12:52:54 I'm Alie Curly, Technology Integration Specialist, Grades 3 through 5 as well as digital learning teacher for grades 3 through 5.
12:53:04 Hi, I'm Tina Cordis, the technology integration specialist, Grades 6 through 8 at Rams.
12:53:12 And Miss Sarah Kune is the point person for technology. Integration at Halston High School.
12:53:26 Today I just wanted to tell you a little bit about common sense media. This is a great resource for families.
12:53:33 It is a leading source of media recommendations and advice for families. Here you can find articles on parental controls.
12:53:41 Warnings related to trending apps. Guidance for screen time and recommendations for books, movies, etc.
12:53:50 Linked on this slide, you will find a parents guide to parental controls as well as a plugged in parents guide for students in grades K through 8.
12:54:19 And here are some elementary apps that you'll find, and we want to be mindful of them.
12:54:25 Roblox is an online gaming platform where you can play games designed by other users and create and share your own game.
12:54:31 TikTok is a social network. For sharing user-generated videos. You can also browse and interact with other users content.
12:54:39 Many of these apps use an algorithm that follow the interests of video to users, much like Instagram. If your kids are saying they play fortnight they're probably talking about Battle Royale.
12:54:51 Like many other games, this allows apps to communicate with strangers. Snapchat is a popular messaging app that lets users exchange.
12:54:58 Pictures and videos called snaps. These are meant to disappear right after they're viewed. Minecraft is a sandbox adventure video game.
12:55:07 And YouTube Kids was created to give students a more contained environment than YouTube.
12:55:19 Hi there, so I'm going to share a little bit about the middle school apps. I'm gonna go back one side.
12:55:27 Thank you. Be real is an app that uses both the front and back cameras to capture images.
12:55:34 And the reason why this raises some concerns is because they send you a notification and you only have 2 min to post your content.
12:55:43 So that raises some stress in children. Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, just so you all know, children are supposed to be 13 years old in order to use these sites.
12:55:56 Most of these are popular social media sites. Which are starting to build that digital footprint and I think kids should really be concerned about the pictures content and personal information.
12:56:08 They're posting online because these are permanent pathways to. Things that colleges and future employees can see.
12:56:17 And so my advice, for these types of apps is to consistently monitor what your children are posting.
12:56:26 Also help with the setting up their privacy settings to make it as secure as possible. Winnie touched on Snapchat and the only thing I will tell you about Snapchat is that there is a new real time conversation feature that is called Family Center.
12:56:43 So you can join as a parent and you can see all of the contacts your child has and you can have conversations about who they're chatting with.
12:56:54 Netflix is a great online tool for watching movies and shows. There is a parental control feature that allows you to create a kit profile that allows you to block content, maturity ratings, and it also allows you to password protect any of the other Netflix accounts you may have.
12:57:14 The last site I wanted to talk about was Discord. Discord is a social networking chat platform, which most kids use for gaming.
12:57:26 It basically hosts a bunch of servers or communities. That kids like to use in order to gather gaming information, connect with other players.
12:57:39 And learn strategies on different games. Like everything else I think it's important to monitor the communities your children are playing in.
12:57:48 And make sure that what they're doing is safe.
12:57:58 So I have 3 children that are in high school right now and I think the best advice I can give you is to take some time to play along with your children.
12:58:09 Take a second to Create a snapchat account, join the family plan. See who your ketos are communicating with and even have some fun making some snapchat pictures with the funny little filters they have.
12:58:23 We've had endless laughter in my house doing that. Instagram social media posts, and different apps.
12:58:31 I think the same thing. Make sure the content they're posting. The best rule I have in my house is to make sure that you remind them that anything they say or share online, they should be able to do in person.
12:58:47 And have some fun playing with your child.
12:58:57 As with most technology, there are positive and negative. About teams using location apps on their phones. On the one hand, apps such as Snapchat, Find My Friends, and Live 360 can help friends find each other at a large gathering.
12:59:10 Families can also use them to keep track of their teens location. Many of these apps have safety features that restrict.
12:59:17 Who can see a user's location.
12:59:25 Many students are coming to school with smart watches. This is helpful for families who want to see their child's location after school especially down here on Woodland Street.
12:59:37 Kids are walking to the center of town and families can keep track of their whereabouts after school hours.
12:59:43 Unfortunately, classes can get interrupted if families are texting their children during the day. Last year I did have an experience where a family texted that the ski trip was canceled.
12:59:57 That day in class. And in that quick moment, I think that family member maybe thought I'm just gonna let them know that they don't have ski trip, but what happened was as a result was that child read the message and said ski trips canceled and then everyone in the middle of the lesson was talking about skiing and they afternoon plans and so that's just one example of how the smart watches
13:00:20 can affect. The learning during the day and interrupt classes and that sort of thing. There are do not disturb settings and there's links on this slide that you can learn about to, set up a school time feature on your child's smartwatch to help them during the day so that they're not distracted.
13:00:45 You may be wondering what. Procedures we have in place and what software we use on our Chromebooks.
13:00:53 That travel home in grades 5 through 12 in addition some iPads go home as well so we use a product called securely It's a content filter.
13:01:04 It's very robust. It's very popular in school districts and we're Very happy with it.
13:01:07 But that said, it's not 100%. So sometimes things through the cracks. But we catch those things very quickly and make sure they're blocked.
13:01:17 But the policy we have in the Chrome books actually works in school and at home. So it is a 24 7 policy so you can.
13:01:25 Be confident that when your child is working on their school work. In their bedroom for example. That policy is still working at home.
13:01:35 There are some additional parent options. Let's say you wanted to control the internet, cause the internet a certain time of night or you want to control other websites.
13:01:46 Let's say the school. For whatever reason decides to unblock a certain app but you feel like it should be blocked after school.
13:01:54 There are some other options. Including bark, Google family link. And then if you have an iPad or an iPhone.
13:02:03 Again, we supply iPads to just certain students to take home. Then we recommend Apple screen time. It's a very effective tool for.
13:02:12 Controlling. Exactly that screen time, pausing the internet, controlling apps, etc. So those are 3 recommendations we have if you want something more than our current content filtering policy on the Chromebooks.
13:02:28 In addition to content filtering, we are very adamant about student data privacy. So. Linked up here is our.
13:02:36 A list of our current privacy agreements. So essentially all the apps we purchased with the exception of very few.
13:02:43 We require the vendor to sign a privacy agreement. And what this does is it protects the students data.
13:02:50 From being released, for example, to the dark web. We hold the vendors accountable for maintaining privacy and maintaining their security on their software.
13:03:06 Just a few other things to be mindful of. Google has actually made some additional Changes in their, requirements, which is all good for students and families.
13:03:18 They are now requiring that we individually approve apps so that students may use single sign on it may not be much to families but it's a great thing because Google is.
13:03:31 Requiring us to set more restrictions on the apps we use for get Google single sign on.
13:03:38 And then as far as protecting your families data privacy, we are a huge proponent. We're doing this for staff currently of 2 step verification.
13:03:48 So if you have not done this for your personal accounts, We highly recommend 2 step verification. It's considered a best practice for Make sure no hacker is able to access your account.
13:04:05 So this slide just talks a little bit more about the screen time in iOS, so that your iPads, iPhones, etc, iPad touches.
13:04:16 This. Feature is very effective. It works. So again, it's one we recommend.
13:04:23 We don't provide, of course, iPhones, some iPads, but if you do have a personal iPad that your child uses.
13:04:30 Then we recommend considering, Apple screen time. It's a very useful and productive tool for.
13:04:38 Monitoring your students.
13:04:43 Website traffic.
13:04:46 In addition to Apple, Verizon, which is a popular. Isp internet resource provider around has a lot of controls that you can take advantage of.
13:05:01 It's called the Smart Family App. I'm not going to read everything that it does here.
13:05:05 But as you can see, it does screen time. Online activity monitoring, etc, pausing the internet.
13:05:12 So again, it's another layer you can add on top of the schools filtering to really control the devices.
13:05:20 So that's for FIOS or any sort of Verizon internet.
13:05:25 Externity has something very similar. Again, that's a popular ISP in So highly recommend, looking into parental controls if you need something additional.
13:05:41 Here are some of our takeaways from this presentation that we hope you'll take the time to look over and think about as you embark on.
13:05:50 Talking with your children about internet safety.
13:06:04 So we'd like to offer follow up to this. Small presentation we're sharing today.
13:06:10 If you'd like to have. Deeper conversation about all of these things. We would love to have that with you.
13:06:16 In addition to that, we would love these sessions that you see posted here to be any sort of technology support you need.
13:06:24 That could be in Placentino Elementary could be clever. And, It could be power school and the parent portal that's middle and high school although we will be opening up Opening that up for elementary families soon.
13:06:42 So any technology question you have, we would love to have a conversation with you. Discuss the reasoning, whatever, whatever we need to do.
13:06:52 We really want Really want to meet with you, regarding any of these topics. So. With that said, we have 4 dates, posted here.
13:07:01 Even though that date or even though the school may say Plasantino for example. We are opening up to any.
13:07:09 Hollis and family. So if you have a high school student and that date is more convenient for you for that time.
13:07:16 Please come to Placentino. We will be able to answer your questions regarding your high school student.
13:07:23 So these are just 4 dates we were starting with. Again, we'd love to have you join us.
13:07:28 We do ask at the bottom of the screen there's a sign up form. So please fill that out so we can better prepare for your visit.
13:07:37 So we look forward to seeing you hopefully at one of these sessions. If not, thank you for your time.
13:07:44 Have a great rest of the day.