Recommended CyberSafety Reading for Parents & Teachers

You can print this list out and distribute it at your next PTA meeting - or provide a link for parents from your school or district web site.

In this indispensable guide for parents, online-safety experts Larry Magid and Anne Collier demystify the world's largest social network. This hands-on book shows how teens use MySpace and other social networks and explains step by step how parents can use it to help their kids blog and socialize safely. The authors remove the fear and hype surrounding social networking and take a clear-eyed look at what is really going on in the very public world of teen online socializing and blogging. In addition, they look at how social networks and their users are changing the Web.
http://www.myspaceunraveled.com

Educator, lawyer, mom and internet safety expert, Nancy Willard, provides sound advice and essential strategies to keep children and teens safe online by taking strategies from the real world and applying them online. Included in her discussions are the types of activities that "at-risk" youth engage in online: addiction, unsafe disclosure of personal information, risky sexual behavior, cyberbullying and connections with other at risk youth. She also offers practical tips for how to deal with cyberbullies, when the child being bullied is your own.
http://cskcst.com/

Concerns and criticisms of the current generation are voiced by everyone from parents to frustrated employers. But Don Tapscott shows how if you understand the "net generation," you'll understand the future. His book is the product of an amazing amount of research, and provides a thorough, timely and thought provoking qualitative analysis of the Net Generation. http://grownupdigital.com/. See his video, "The Dumbest Generation" to launch a great classroom discussion - guaranteed to grab student interest!

Letters To A Bullied Girl - Messages of Healing & Hope
Olivia Gardner, a northern California teenager, was severely taunted and cyber-bullied by her classmates for more than two years. News of her bullying spread, eventually reaching two teen sisters from a neighboring town, Emily and Sarah Buder. In Letters to a Bullied Girl, Olivia and the Buder sisters share an inspiring selection of messages that arrived from across America—the personal, often painful remembrances of former targets, remorseful bullies, and sympathetic bystanders. Order the book here.

Raising A Digital Child: A Digital Handbook for Parents. From Mike Ribble, author of Digital Citizenship in the Schools, this is a parent’s guide to learning about many of the newest and most popular technologies. It discusses the challenges of each and how parents can help children to deal with these challenges. Parents will discover how they can teach and model the types of behaviors that every child should learn in order to become a good citizen in this increasingly digital world. Buy the book here.

Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives - John Palfrey and Urs Gasser
The first generation of “Digital Natives” – children who were born into and raised in the digital world – are coming of age, and soon our world will be reshaped in their image. Our economy, our politics, our culture and even the shape of our family life will be forever transformed. But who are these Digital Natives? How are they different from older generations – or “Digital Immigrants” – and what is the world they’re creating going to look like? Order the book here.

Net Family News: KidTech News for Parents
Anne Collier has been writing about Family Internet issues through her free weekly publication, NetFamilyNews, for over a decade and her thoughtful opinions and analysis of noteworthy events are widely respected. Together with CBS Reporter, Larry Magid, she is co-author of MYSPACE UNRAVELED and co-director of the web site, CONNECTSAFELY.ORG. You can subscribe to her weekly publication by email. She also keeps a blog with timely updates in between publications.
http://www.netfamilynews.org

Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, has long studied "the Net Generation," the first to have grown up with the Internet and cell phones. In Me, MySpace and I: Parenting the Net Generation (Palgrave Macmillan), he helps parents understand social networks. His advice: Talk to your kids, learn the technology and don't panic." [Janet Kornblum, 3/08] http://www.csudh.edu/psych/lrosen.htm
Generation MySpace: Helping Your Teen Survive Online Adolescence. Candice Kelsey draws on interviews with hundreds of teens to help parents determine what they should and should not be concerned about when it comes to technology. The author is a middle school teacher in California who has supplemented her personal experience with extensive research.
http://www.candicekelsey.com/buyitnow/index.html

The Norton Family Online Safety Guide was awarded the iParenting Media Award in the Best Book category. Written by Internet Safety Advocate Marian Merritt, the free educational guide provides practical tips for parents and educators on how to keep children safe on the Internet. Due to the guide’s overwhelming popularity, the guide has now been translated for Spanish-speaking families and educators. You can download the 30-page guides in PDF format by clicking the links below:

Family Online Safety Guide - English
Family Online Safety Guide - Spanish

The Parent and Teacher Tutorial for Online Privacy from Symantec has been prepared to arm you with information that will help you and your children enjoy the Internet safely. Use this guide as a starting point to teach kids how to stay safe online so that they can understand how they can control the uses of their personal information, take security measures to ensure their safety, and protect their privacy. You can download the free 20-page booklet by clicking the link below:
Online Privacy: A Tutorial for Parents & Teachers

Stand Up Guide: What Every Parent Needs to Know About Cyberbullying [PDF]
This guide (produced by Unicel with the expertise of the Empower Program) is designed to help parents identify, regulate and respond to cyber bullying by and against children.
http://www.unicel.com/standup/pdf/StandUpGuide.pdf