It Takes a Village....

This Wednesday, from 6-7pm, we are holding a Parent Digital Boot Camp Night. During this hour, we will hold three sessions to empower parents to be active in the digital world their children live in. The digital world becomes larger everyday, with new tools and apps that are exciting and open communication. However, as adults, educators and parents along with community members need to be aware of the potential hazards our tweens and teens are navigating while living in this world of open communication and instant media.

Common Sense Media, a leader in cybersafety and media, released a study last week that is both interesting and eye-opening at the same time. This consensus study is based on a national sample of more than 2,600 tweens (ages8-12 years old) and teens (13-18 years old). From this, they used the probablitiy model by using the sampled data. The results definitely make us stop and think:

** The average American teen/tween uses an average of 9 hours a media daily, not including school or homework.

** Of those surveyed, there were 6 distinct types of media users:

Mobile Gamer

Social Networker

Heavy Viewer

Video Gamer

Reader

Light Viewer

What does this mean? It means that our students are spending more time than we realize using media to communicate and learn from their peers. The study looks at what each gender spends more time participating in. Girls spend the majority of their time listening to music (37%) while boys spend the majority of their time gaming (27%). Overall, listening to music and watching TV online are still the reigning champions of teens and tweens when using devices.

So all of this information is great, but what does it mean for us as adults? It means that we need to become more socially aware of the tools and apps our children are using. We need to make sure that they understand what Personal Information is, cyber security, and how to navigate tough topics like cyberbullying and online predators. This sounds like a daunting task, and the reality of some of the problems we see can seem larger than life with media coverage of extreme incidents. However, working together, educators, community members, and parents can build our students confidence and abilities to the point where they can navigate without problems. We are working to ensure that we build the relationships with our parents and community in order to ensure that our students are getting the guidance needed to make safe choices and know how to handle a situation if they are approached by cyberbullies, haters, trolls, and predators.

Steps to Help:

1. Common Sense Media Parent Concerns Link: This site has a variety of subjects that parents have shared their concerns about. Common Sense has put together blogs and articles as well as resources for parents.

2. The Oberon BYOD Page: Within the page, we have links to Parent's Guides for various apps like Facebook, Instagram, AskFM, and Gaming.

3. Come to our Parent Digital Boot Camp Night, meet with other parents and staff who are looking to navigate this world. This month, we are looking at how to manage devices at home, a How-to session for parents to use Parent Portal and Schoology, and a session on Social Media Awareness. Together, we can learn a lot and feel more confident for our students.

4.Stop Bullying.gov Be aware of the local laws surrounding social media, video, and your student's use. Many times, students are unaware that they are committing a crime when they use their cameras on their phones or devices. They also don't understand that digitally, our tone of voice and intent in a message can be misinterpreted. Because of extreme cases, these things are now illegal and can lead to fines and court appearances. It is important for our students to be aware of these laws as well as us as adults to know what is considered okay behavior versus destructive or illegal action.

Common Sense Media Key Findings