Digital Smarts - Checkology 101

Can parents be liable for a nasty social networking page created by their child and used to bully another? It is a question that many schools and parent groups are debating these days and is now playing out in a Georgia courtroom...

Connecting with friends and family has always been the mission of Facebook., and anonymity has long been discouraged on the site...

Federal drug-enforcement officials are claiming the right to impersonate people on Facebook in order to ensnare suspected criminals. A woman whose phone was confiscated found that officials had harvested photos from it and used them to establish a fake Facebook page in her name...

According to Snapchat CEO Emily White, computing has evolved from being a tool for solving problems to a medium for sharing feelings for young users...

It is a delicate dance figuring out how much screen time is too much for kids in a world where it is also important for them to be digitally savvy. A National Public Radio Education blog entry entitled Kids and Screen Time: Cutting Through the Static explains why it is so important, especially in the formative years, that kids have lots of face to face time...

You should have a password set up to protect the information on your cell phone - that’s Digital Smarts 101. Until now, though, phone manufacturers like Apple and Google could unlock that code if given a court order. Now Apple has announced that the new operating system for iPhones, iOS 8, will not give the company access to passcode-protected phones, making it technologically impossible to comply with governmental requests. Google/Android is following suit, upsetting the FBI and other law enforcement agencies...

Perhaps you have been told to create a contact in your phone labeled ICE, for “in case of emergency,” filled with the name and number of a spouse, parent, child or friend who should be notified if anything should happen to you. The problem with that is if your phone is locked with a passcode or fingerprint, it might be impossible for someone to find that contact in an emergency. Apple’s latest operating system, iOS 8, has created a possible solution to allow access to emergency contacts without unlocking the phone...

Researchers from England have found that “likes” on Facebook for companies and celebrities are not all they are cracked up to be...

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has passed on his set of rules for not getting overwhelmed by email in a new article in Time magazine. One of his recommendations is to send quick responses, reminding readers that less said in an email is often more...

“All Secrets Can Be Told” is a FREE lesson plan, along with a video called “Tom’s Secret,” that is available for parents, schools and other child-serving organizations. It was developed by Child Lures/Teen Lures Prevention, a group that works to prevent all forms of mistreatment, including sexual exploitation. One of the biggest challenges parents and teachers have is getting kids to talk about things that might be happening to them...