Does anyone have any resources that we can prepare/provide for our parents in our congregation about the dangers of giving smart phones to kids and tools or solutions to reduce risk? I have heard of Disney’s circle, and am aware of ios lock down and am looking into https://mosyle.com/
Our end goal is to do a class or webinar like session to provide for our congregation.
An Appeal To Bill And Melinda Gates For Your Help In Raising Healthy Children
Check out Netsanity, its fairly new and has had some bugs in the past but it is an effective way to manage phones, tablets, and laptops…
commonsensemedia.org has some resources commonly used by schools for Digital Citizenship curriculum. They also have some material for home use.
A couple of schools in our area use mosyle for ios devices and are happy with the product; not sure if there are home use options.
Also, check out what your school provides. Since many schools accept ERate funding for telecommunications, they are required to provide Internet Safety Training (including digital citizenship), and also content filtering on the school network.
My family uses Covenant Eyes at home for all computers and devices. If it doesn’t work with Covenant Eyes, we don’t use it at our house, or at least have the internet capability locked down.
Also, for family resources, I highly recommend a book: “Good Pictures Bad Pictures” Designed for parents to read with children, it’s very good and practical. It is secular, so you may want to combine it with some Biblical teaching about purity, but that alone often misses the practical which is so necessary today.
Oh, and there’s “Taming the Techno-beast”, written several years ago but still good.
I hope that’s the kind of thing you’re looking for.
Not sure if you are also looking for a resource for parents or a software app. If you are looking for a book resource, you might want to check out a new book from our own Jonathon Smith from Faith Ministries in Lafayette, IN. The book will be available October 1 … and he told me he will have copies at the National Conference in two weeks.
Some good resources mentioned in the posts. It is however important to think beyond running filters, and remind children (and us) about digital citizenship and how our online postings become our body of work, ie, online resume. We have to go beyond only avoiding bad behavior, and move to promoting good behavior and postings. Good digital citizenship involves posting good, useful material online, encouraging others, etc. I know someone very active in the technical side of education in Ohio, and when you look at his online postings, talks, etc, he is incredibly productive in the tech arena.
Working in a school, I have seen first hand the damage social media postings can cause, and sadly, it often comes from parents going on a rant without accurate information about an issue. Also, our teens need to understand the level to which employers will go to search online postings of a potential hire, and how online postings can hurt their chances for a job.
In short, filtering is good, but only the first step.
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