SOCIAL MEDIA SAFETY (SMS)
ROSALYN C. DAVID
Around the globe is just a finger tips away. Surfing the net makes a person travel without spending too much money and children are not exempted. In school, teachers need to indulge in social media since students are very much interested in the lesson if ICT-Based. Assignments, school projects, performances in physical education, and others make the life of a student easy. They are just a click away. The internet or the web site links up different worlds. While children and students benefit from these, they are also the target of exploitation and harassment in the cyberspace. To better control or prevent the children from such, parents play a big role in monitoring their children.
The following are some points for parents to help teachers in making them to be a good student in the school, keeping track their children in surfing the internet or web sites by following the MICE guide.
¦ Monitor – Parents should stay close to their children about their online activities. Tell them to be respectful even though they do not see whom they’re talking to. On the other hand let them stay away from sights that would cause them trouble.
¦ Investigate – Find time to know their group chats, their search engines and look for sites or devices that can help filter out materials that are not suitable for children.
¦ Control – Keep track of what your children do online. There are devices that can help you whichever is good whatever your children download online. Some suggested devices are www.semantic.com, www.mozilla.org or www.safari.com. These will prevent spam messages, mouse trapping and pop up icons.
¦ Explain – Some children get addicted to internet which affects their attention and focus to a much important matters like studies and even gets you into trouble of finding out that they are in an internet café rather than in school.
Managing children of the proper use of internet will help them become responsible and prioritize learning.
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The author is Teacher at Cabetican ES, Bacolor North District