Community

Goal

The community presentation is designed to encourage adult involvement in children's online lives. Adults will come out of the seminar with an understanding of the basics of the Internet so that they can help build up the "Internet immune system" of their children and help develop them as critical consumers while online.

Topics

Our community presentation can be tailored based on audience or special requests but typically covers the following topics:

• How the Internet works
• What kids use the Internet for
• Why the Internet is so important in kids' daily lives
• Risks and challenges kids may face online
  • Online privacy risks: what can happen if you share too much personal information
  • Cyber predators
  • Social networking
  • Cyberbullying
  • Online fraud
• How to talk to kids about the Internet and its risks using open communication

Approach

We address risks and issues related to the Internet by relating them back to traditional life lessons that parents would teach their children; recognizing that only the media for danger has changed in the lives of youth today. The community presentation recognizes that youth are typically ahead of adults on the technology learning curve, but that sheltering kids from technology is not the answer. Through proactive education parents and educators can become involved in children's online lives and achieve better results than through reactive control mechanisms.