" ... that proper education about appropriate online behavior and digital media consumption can help children evaluate potential online risks. The group suggested that the government “promote nationwide education in digital citizenship and media literacy as the cornerstone of internet safety.”

 

Recommendations include creating a web-based clearinghouse of online safety education research, avoiding scare tactics, promoting digital citizenship at all grade levels, establishing industry best practices for effective internet safety education programs, and looking to young people as experts in the online and digital media arenas by involving them in risk-prevention education.

 

Awareness efforts should be ongoing, and stakeholders should “promote greater transparency for parents as to what sort of content and information will be accessible and recorded with a given product when their child is online,” recommended a subcommittee on parental controls and child protection technology.

 

In this interview with Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, we learn what he thinks about the future of the internet and how teenagers will consume media. Schmidt thinks that Chinese-language content will dominate the web. He also says to look at how teenagers consume content today. He says they easily move from one application to the next with relative ease. He then reminds us that today's teenagers are tomorrow's employees.

Schmidt thinks in 5 years their will be no distinction between TV, radio, and the web. If what Schmidt says materializes how will this effect education. I have said in many posts on the blog that I believe smartphone growth will continue to expand exponentially and this will impact how schools use technology. If a student has a smartphone today he has unlimited access to data, video, radio, and all other forms of information without ever accessing the school network. How this will all look in 5 years is impossible to imagine. Schools need to prepare for the wave of mobile access that is hitting our educational shores now and will only increase in intensity each year. Below is a video of a portion of the interview with Eric Schmidt.

The Safe Place Organization has a new initiative called Txt 4 Help. Below is a clip from their website.

Here is how it works:

Youth in crisis can text the word SAFE and their current location to the number 69866 and they will receive an address of the nearest Safe Place site and contact number for the local youth shelter.  In cities that don't have a Safe Place program, the youth will receive the name and number of the youth shelter or, if there is no local shelter, a national-hotline number.

Safe Place provides access to immediate help and supportive resources for all young people in crisis through a network of sites sustained by qualified agencies, trained volunteers and businesses.

 I think this is a good idea. It is meeting kids on their turf. Today's teenagers live in the world of text. Follow the link above for more information on the program.