Advancements in artificial intelligence technology have transformed the media we consume. These highly intelligent computer programs can create realistic-looking images from a few words, hold entire conversations, and even write cited essays. While programs like ChatGPT can give us simple answers to our questions, they can also hinder our children’s learning when they outsource their brainwork to an all-knowing robot. If you worry that your child is relying on technology a little too much, our Screen Safety Toolkit offers a resource guide so you can tighten up screen time supervision and management.
What is ChatGPT?
ChatGPT is a language processing tool that is powered by artificial intelligence (AI) technology, allowing you to have human-like conversations.[1] ChatGPT can answer one’s questions and complete various tasks from essays, to editing code, to writing emails. This software is open to the public for free, although there is also a paid subscription version with additional features.[1] Notable celebrities in technology like Elon Musk have commented on the strength of ChatGPT, stating “ChatGPT is scary good. We are not far from dangerously strong AI.”[1]
ChatGPT gets its data from textbooks, websites, and various articles which it simultaneously uses to model its language to seem more human-like.[2] This AI is well-trained on biased and unbiased data and can reproduce data with reliability, something that many other similar AI systems lack.[2]
When asked to write a sentence for this article, ChatGPT responded with, “ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence language model developed by OpenAI, based on the GPT-3 architecture. It is designed to generate natural language responses to a wide variety of prompts and questions. ChatGPT uses advanced machine learning algorithms to understand the nuances of language and generate context-sensitive responses that are often indistinguishable from those written by a human. It has a wide range of potential applications, from customer service and education to creative writing and more.”[3] How’s that for a definition?!
How are kids using ChatGPT to cheat?
While ChatGPT’s design of being able to generate natural responses to various questions and prompts can make it a helpful tool for educational and informational purposes, it also opens it up to exploitation for other purposes. A quick Google search will turn up dozens of articles on how to get ChatGPT to write your essay for you. A student at Cardiff University in Wales shared his experience with turning in two papers, one written by himself and the other written by ChatGPT.[4] The essay from ChatGPT earned him the highest grade he had ever received on an essay in his entire time in undergraduate school.[4]
College professor and TikTok user Lilmaverick3 received an essay from one of her students that had been flagged by TurnItIn.com as being 100% written by AI technology, proving that students have already started taking advantage of the AI’s skills and ability to create human-like speech.[5] The technology is still relatively new but stories just like this will likely continue.
Cheating robs children of the satisfaction of completing their own assignments and the learning experience that comes with research. It also offers a dishonest view of academic ability, which can quickly get out of hand when teachers ratchet up expectations in response.
What Parents and Educators Can Do to Prevent Cheating
Research various forms of AI detectors and run your child’s papers through flagging software, this way you can see if the paper has any elements that have been plagiarized.
Some popular flagging software includes Writer’s AI Content Detector and Content at Scale’s AI Detector. For educators, we recommend having students turn in assignments through TurnItIn.com, this checks for plagiarism as well as how much of the assignment is AI-generated content.
Sit with your child while they work on assignments to offer support as they need it, and be there before they decide to turn to AIs.
Manage smart devices during homework time using resources from our GKIS Screen Safety Toolkit.
Utilize ChatGPT in ways that allow it to be an educational tool, like writing ideas, creating to-do lists, and finding resources.
ChatGPT is a helpful tool for educational purposes when used properly. As a prompt-based language bot, it can be used to spruce up resumes or cover letters based on inputted job description data, help create outlines for papers based on inputted prompt data, and even provide recipes for weekly meals.
Promoting ChatGPT as an educational tool rather than a homework robot can prevent your child from creating an unhealthy dependence on AI software to do their work for them.
With the Covid-19 pandemic creating an unexpected need for online school, tech has been forever integrated into our children’s everyday curriculum. Teachers recognize that kids benefit from tech tools, and schools now offer individual devices for kids as young as elementary age. We’ve become reliant on screen devices at home too. Smart assistants, like devices that support Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri, get us fast answers to questions in seconds. But is it helpful to outsource the brainwork we should be doing ourselves? What if you’re a kid who hasn’t yet mastered independent reasoning? Does relying on a screen device impair learning rather than help us develop it? Are teachers aware of how much kids are outsourcing learning to their devices? If you worry that your child is using tech too much, our Screen Safety Toolkit offers a resource guide so you can tighten up screen time supervision and management.
What are smart assistants?
Smart assistants are tech devices, like phones, portable screens, watches, and speakers that use software to perform verbally requested tasks.[1] Among the most popular are Alexa, Google Assistant, and Siri.
As of 2021, about 47% of smartphone users in the United States are Siri-equipped iPhone users.[2] In 2020, close to 70% of smart speaker users in the United States used Alexa-equipped Amazon Echos.[3] The prevalence of these two smart assistants has created an encyclopedia of knowledge accessible just at the sound of our voices. In fact, Amazon promotes using Alexa for that very purpose.
Last year, Amazon ran an ad that showed a father asking Alexa what year Pompeii was destroyed. Once he receives his answer from Alexa, he shares it with his daughter who is clearly doing homework at the dining table. She then turns to ask him for the name of the volcano. He responds by turning back to the Alexa device. Although this ad intends to demonstrate a fun interaction between father and daughter, it also demonstrates how smart devices are being used to cheat on assignments and get easy answers.
Are kids using smart devices to cheat?
The modern generation of students is smart, and they know how to use the technological resources they are given. But they also know how to use them to cheat and get away with it.
A college student I interviewed recalls a run-in with a fellow classmate who had Siri turned on during a test in high school. “We were in the middle of a test in my AP European history class, and suddenly the iPhone of the girl sitting next to me begins speaking. You can hear Siri say, ‘The War of 1812 was…’ before she abruptly turned it off. The teacher immediately turned to her and said, ‘Make sure all phones are turned off please.’ The student turned bright red, so I think she definitely learned her lesson.”
This instance of cheating occurred in 2017. Since then, opportunities for cheating with smart devices are more common than ever. A recent high school graduate recalls taking tests during Covid-19. “The teachers would make us all have our cameras on, but they wouldn’t require us to be unmuted since it would be a distraction. Since they couldn’t hear us, anytime I would get stuck I would just ask the Alexa sitting in my room. Sometimes my friends and I would even Facetime each other and use my Alexa together whenever we felt confused. I honestly would never study for tests because I didn’t see a point when I could just get the information from Google so easily.”
For a student who is struggling, smart devices provide the perfect assistance for quick and easy answers to questions while simultaneously being practically untraceable. Other forms of cheating leave behind indicators or evidence, but smart assistants don’t.
It is a given that cheating is bad, but you may not know of the many downsides to cheating that go beyond academia. A recent study by a Harvard-Duke research team found that cheaters tended to engage in “self-deception,” meaning they would view their high performance as a sign of high intelligence, which may not actually be true. They see a high score, and even though they cheated, they believed that they are smart enough to have earned that score.[4] Another study found that when our kids cheat, they deprive themselves of the happiness that comes from independent accomplishment.[5] Smart devices are helpful tools, but when their assistance turns into dependence, kids begin to create a world where there actually at a disadvantage.
Take away or manage smart devices during class or homework time using resources from our Screen Safety Toolkit.
Advocate for your kids and communicate your preferences about tech integration with teachers and school administrators.
Offer valuable information and support for your learning community by suggesting a screen safety webinar from Dr. Bennett, our Screen Safety Expert, at your school and church.
Set up tech-free learning challenges for the whole family like a family game or trivia night.
Encourage creativity, curiosity, confidence, and a love of learning by offering a variety of fun educational materials and outings.
Optimize health tech integration for the whole family with the parents-only and family coaching videos from our Screen Safety Essentials Course.
Thanks to CSUCI intern, Katherine Carroll for researching kids cheating using smart assistant devices and co-authoring this article.
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.
Dangerous TikTok trends have previously sent kids to the hospital, now a new trend is sending them to jail. The forever infamous “Tide Pod challenge,” which spawned from an internet meme, gained huge traction among young users on the platform TikTok after videos of kids eating the toxic laundry detergent went viral. These videos resulted in thousands of calls to poison control, and hundreds of trips to the emergency room. While this shocking TikTok trend faded away in early 2018, a new trend dubbed “Devious Licks” has rocked schools across the nation and lead to the arrests of several students.
What is TikTok?
TikTok is a social media and video-sharing platform that is primarily marketed to kids and teens. Since its launch in 2016, it has become one of the most popular social media sites attracting over 1 billion monthly users. What drives the popularity of this platform is that it offers millions of short user-created videos that feature an enormous variety of content. Through the use of hashtags, TikTok users can see which viral videos are attracting the largest number of views from fellow TikTokers. The most popular videos are re-created or copied by other users to increase their chances of having their videos viewed which is essentially how TikTok trends get started. With so many users competing for likes and attention, these viral trend videos spread like wildfire.
TikTok has previously come under fire for its initial lack of action in response to the posting of “Tide Pod challenge” videos. CBS reports that there were at least ten deaths related to this challenge. Unfortunately, TikTok failed to promptly block uploads to their platform that featured the hashtag “Tide Pod challenge” which ultimately would have prevented this trend from getting the amount of exposure that it did.
The New Dangerous Trend: “Devious Licks”
Early September 2021, when kids across the nation finally began going back to school after a year of COVID19-required virtual learning, videos featuring the hashtag “DeviousLicks” swept through TikTok. Unlike the name suggests, this newest trend does not actually involve physically licking dangerous objects. According to UrbanDictionary.com the word lick is slang for an illegal way to quickly get money, primarily through the theft of property. The “Devious Licks” trend is a competition among kids and teens to see who can film themselves while stealing the riskiest or most important objects without getting caught and then subsequently uploading the video onto TikTok as proof of participation. While this trend has reportedly spanned schools across the nation, these videos are most often shot in middle and high schools.
How did it start?
This viral video trend allegedly began when one student posted a video to TikTok featuring a box of disposable face masks they purported to have stolen from the campus. The viral video, which received almost half a million views, was captioned, “A month into school and got this absolutely devious lick… Should’ve brought a mask from home. Now look at you walkin round campus maskless you dirty dog.” Since this first video was posted, things escalated drastically.
A list of some of the stolen items featured in devious licks videos include:
Fire extinguishers
Fire Alarms
Exit Signs
Bathroom Supplies
soap dispensers and paper towel/toilet paper dispensers, urinal cakes
Classroom Supplies:
lab materials, computers, books, a class pet, pencil sharpeners, projectors
Physical Property:
sinks, toilets, stall walls, a principal’s car parts, locker doors, cellphones, SMART boards, desks/chairs, clocks
One video even shows a shoe being stolen off the foot of a student who was sitting in a bathroom stall. Other videos show student restrooms that have been completely vandalized and rendered almost useless. Parents at a middle school in Texas have been asked to send their kids to school with their own hand soap due to the dispensers having all been stolen from the restrooms.
Police Are Stepping In
To stop this trend from continuing, law enforcement officials have begun arresting students across several different states. In Kentucky, eight students have been arrested due to their participation in the “Devious Licks” challenge. Four of the students were charged with theft while the remaining four were charged with vandalism. Five more students were charged in Florida, one student charged in Arizona, and one student charged in Alabama.
TikTok’s Response
While it is obvious that a lot of damage has occurred across many different schools that are already struggling amidst the global pandemic, TikTok has responded to this phenomenon by continually blocking all “Devious Licks”- related content from being uploaded onto their site to prevent more damage. Unfortunately, the criminal records of the students who were arrested in connection with this trend cannot be fixed as easily as soap dispensers.
Why is this happening?
Today’s kids and teens spend so much of their time in virtual neighborhoods. Social media platforms are where our kids go to socialize, meet new people, make impressions, and try to fit in. Adolescence is a time when we constantly crave feelings of validation and social media platforms like TikTok can be a powerful avenue for seeking validation through attention. Kids will strive for popularity on TikTok by participating in potentially (and sometimes obviously) dangerous trends such as the “Devious Licks” challenge because the validation they receive from others feels good. Their brains are wired with a powerful reward system that can make their better judgment take a back seat to their need to feel embraced, even if it seems artificial to us.
What Kids Need from Their Parents
The negative implications of this newest TikTok trend are obvious. Aside from the damage to school property and the loss of personal property from other students, the potential loss of future opportunities due to a permanent criminal record because of participating in a fleeting internet trend is tragic.
To avoid these kinds of negative outcomes, parent-child communication and parental oversight are key. Dr. B offers essential tips for fostering this kind of communication in her GKIS Connected Family Course. With this online course, you will learn how to create a safer screen home environment through fun parenting techniques designed to guide sensible screen management.
Additionally, Dr. B’s tried and true GKIS Social Media Readiness Training is a valuable tool that teaches tweens and teens about the inherent risks of social media and ways to be prepared when encountering them. Remember to be kind, create an environment that allows for open dialogue between you and your kids, and rest assured that you have provided your family with the tools to facilitate safe and healthy internet practices. You can also stay up to date on relevant internet/gaming topics with our free articles on the GKIS Blog.
Thanks to CSUCI intern, Mackenzie Morrow for researching TikTok’s newest dangerous “Devious Licks” trend and co-authoring this article.
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetKidsInternetSafe.
It’s a battle keeping students engaged in education in our screen-soaked world. Kids love learning. But they seem less in love with school and more in love with screen time. How do we reengage our students in school and the love of learning? Have we reached the tipping point where tech in the classroom is necessary for engagement? Or since COVID-19 Stay at Home Orders, have screens isolated kids and made them too fatigued to learn? Screens are great at teaching kids to self-interrupt, leading often report that real-life classrooms turn them off instead of turning them on. Today’s GKIS article highlights the benefit of tech and how gamification is being tested in education.
Traditional Teaching Methods Versus Screen Tech
Traditionally, schools use teacher-led workbook activities, in-class discussions, and textbook-based homework that rely heavily on structured lessons and memorization. Lessons often span longer than 10 minutes. This can be problematic considering the typical adult’s attention span is only 15 minutes.[1]
Screen technology, on the other hand, is fast-moving and interactive and offers the student on-demand selection at the click of a button. The opportunity to self-select content is empowering and gratifying. Teachers can also track the student’s learning process in real time and gradually feed relevant and increasingly challenging content.
The rewarding versatility of technology has led children to immerse themselves in their virtual worlds an average of ten hours a day. With this number of hours on-screen, many kids are creating brain pathways best matched with on-demand screen delivery rather than teacher-facilitated instruction.
Evidence of Disengagement
Even before COVID, a 2014 poll of 825,000 5th-12th grade students found that nearly half of the students surveyed felt disengaged in the learning process. Only 40% of their teachers believed their students were engaged. Reported numbers were even lower (26%) in high-poverty schools.[2] This finding is particularly concerning, considering that a student’s engagement in grade school is correlated with how well they will do in college.[3]
When schoolteacher and gamification enthusiast Scott Hebert asked his students why they didn’t seem to care about the lessons taught in school, they replied, “I don’t get why we need to do this stuff, give us a reason to care.”[4] Without intrinsic interest, meaning the task isn’t naturally motivating, they felt like they had to jump through meaningless hoops to learn.
To be successful, education must speak their language and meet them where they’re at. For most kids, that means reaching them in their virtual worlds. Studies have reported that 90% of students agree using a tablet will change the way they learn in the future, and 56% of high school students would like to use mobile devices in the classroom.[5]
Gamification
Gamification was coined by computer programmer Nick Pelling in 2002. The concept of gamification is to take the natural enjoyments that attract people to technology and inject those into education. In other words, create a more fun humanisticapproach to education, rather than our traditional instruction-led, function-focused approach.[6]
Dr. See is a professor at the University of Hong Kong who teaches human anatomy and medicine. He noticed that video games and education have features that overlap. For example, they both:
require solving mental puzzles,
recalling information,
looking for patterns,
working under pressure,
communicating ideas, and
working within a time limit.
Because his students loved video games, he decided to use gamification within his classroom. He applied puzzles and games to the curriculum, like for the memorization of the names of medications. As a result, his students reported that they were more motivated and learned better.[7] His gamification worked!
Learning through gamification does not mean it is easy. Gamification is engaging because it requires the student to generate the material instead of being instructed to do so. It is not about making school easier. Instead, it allows the student to actively engage in the learning process.[8]
Intrinsic & Extrinsic Motivators
We are psychologically motivated by intrinsic and extrinsic factors.
Intrinsic motivators (things that you enjoy doing that compel you forward) are important for well-being.
The psychological needs that must be met to feel motivated are:
autonomy (working on your own),
competence (being good at it), and
relatedness (feeling connected to what you learn).
Extrinsic motivators are rewards that come from outside. Examples include grades, points, and praise. External rewards may become harmful to our psychological well-being when they’re the only reason for engagement.[9]
For great learning, then, we must avoid rewarding students with points and grades. Instead, we must allow students to have a choice in what they’re learning and a chance to try it on their own and celebrate their efforts. These goals within a classroom can be challenging.
Gamifying Tests
Video games are set up for lots of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. The player gets to pick the game they relate to. then they get to play it on their own, simply restarting after they fail. They may lose points. But so what. They can just start over. Nobody is judging them.
Traditional school testing methods do the opposite. Typically, a failing grade on the test is the student’s final act of the lesson. They don’t get a do-over. That means failure has huge consequences and may leave the learner feeling hopeless and demoralized.
Gamifying testing could reverse that process by offering smaller quizzes that the student can retake over and over as they learn the material. Instead of feeling terrible about their first attempt, they can see their points going up and up – just like in a video game.
Starting a student at 100% with nowhere to go but down can lead the student to feel hopeless. According to prospect theory, people have a difficult time choosing activities when they anticipate a loss.
Alternatively, starting at zero and gaining points from there encourages a growth mindset. That means looking forward to learning instead of feeling defeated by it. The student would begin the semester with zero points and as the year progresses, they could earn points as they complete assignments. This would give students a growth mindset for their education!
AltSchool
Educators have tested technology-assisted education models, especially since the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. For example, millions of dollars have been invested in AltSchool, a school that promotes a personalized learning platform using technology. In Altschool, students are provided with iPads or laptops and given individualized learning activities. The school encourages students to learn at their own pace, developing the mastery skills needed to learn the subject. The goal is engagement and learning potential.
Outcome studies revealed that students who learned at their own pace felt more competent and autonomous.[10] However, a teacher noticed his students were less connected with each other than before. They were more engaged with the technology than they were with one another. Also, we all remember the Zoom burnout students felt after the COVID epidemic. Losing motivation and connectedness over time may be risks of technologically assisted education.
The need for relatedness and connection is particularly important in learning because others provide feedback and perspective.[11]Authoritative instruction may trigger the reactance theory, which explains how people value autonomy so much they will “react” or do the opposite of what they are told to feel they made their own decision.
Quest to Learn
Another applied experiment for new and creative education is Quest to Learn. This is a gamified high school in Manhattan that was founded in 2009. Many of the classes at the school are not internet-based but instead teach through role-playing. Students act out the responsibilities of a chosen profession, like learning about politics by impersonating a politician.[12] By narrating the character, a student generates the answers needed for complex subjects.[13]
Because screen technology is still new, innovative (new and creative) teaching models and outcome studies are still being developed. Hybrid models (part in-classroom and part on-screen) are also being tested. As tech optimists, we at GKIS look forward to seeing all the cool things coming up in education.
Thanks to Andrew Weissmann for his research for this article. For a glimpse into some of the benefits of video games, check out our GKIS article Is Your Child a “Professional Gamer”?
Works Cited
[1] Usnews.com Kids asked to learn in ways that exceed attention spans by the Hechinger Report
[7] School of Biomedical Sciences sbms.hku.hk Dr. See, Christopher
[8] Christopher See Gamification in Higher Education
[9] Kasser and Ryan (1993) A dark side of the American dream: Correlates of financial success as a central life aspiration. (1996). Further examining the American dream: Differential correlates of intrinsic and extrinsic goals.
[10] Black & Deci, (2000) selfdeterminationtheory.org
[11] The Backlash Against Screen Time at School by Rob Waters
[12] Worldgovernmentsummit.org Gamification and the future of education
Teen life is complicated! And just like adult life, it is difficult to stay in healthy balance. My GKIS teen screen media series breaks the balance into three primary areas: learning and academics, friends and fun, and rest, rejuvenation, and self-care. Maybe you hoped that as your teens gained more independence, your parenting responsibilities would decline? Think again! Parenting a teen is perhaps the most emotionally taxing phase thus far. Not only must you learn to compromise and negotiate, but teaching, modeling, and supporting complex skill building is what separates the successful teen from the unsuccessful.
Adolescents live busy lives. Along with big changes to their bodies and brains, this generation is more overtasked than ever before with academics becoming increasingly important for launch. Teens must increasingly transition from middle school to high school, class to class, activity to activity, screen to screen. In my practice, I have seen overtasking increasingly take a concerning toll on teen mental health. Outsourcing tasks to screen media helps with day-to-day activities, like using social media to maintain friendships, calendars to schedule, texting and email to communicate, the Internet to seek new information, and word processing to store and produce classroom assignments. However, they still need our help with overall organization and self care. Parents can support their success by helping teens with big picture skills by setting up, teaching, and supporting organization, project management, and study tools.
Valuable organization, learning, and education tools for any family with teens include:
A FAMILY COMMAND CENTER. In our house this revolves around the kitchen computer. Not only is this where we calendar activities that automatically synch on all of our phones, but we have a basket that serves as an inbox. This helps stage regular planning sessions and organize papers that need signed and deadlines that must be met. Scheduling and post-it notes can be completed by keyboard, others with old fashioned pen and paper. Calendar and to-do list apps include iCal, Google Calendar, Outlook, and Cozi.
SPECIFIED DOCKING STATIONS. This sounds obvious, but organization takes preplanning. Assign a filing-not-piling area for important items like screen media, backpacks, keys, and shoes. If kids get in the habit of storing items in one space, it avoids a lot of frantic searching and last-minute scolding. At night, I suggest a docking station in the parent’s bedroom for screen media devices. Otherwise, you will be unable to check for compliance and sneaking WILL happen.
STOCKPILE COLOR-CODED SCHOOL SUPPLIES. It doesn’t take long for folders to rip and paper to run low. By getting your teen’s school supplies organized from the beginning and staging backpack checks, you can help them stay organized and avoid missed assignments. Setting up folders on-screen media is also helpful for digital organization and efficiency. With the right support and materials, teens will become increasingly independent with their academics.
ONLINE CLOUD STORAGE TOOLS. Apps like Google Drive, Dropbox, and Picasa are an extremely helpful way to get organized and stay organized. I personally store all of my university materials on Dropbox so I can effortlessly pull them up for use at the beginning of class. No more heavy book bags, lost flash drives, and aching shoulders. Cloud backup services are particularly important for security. My friends at Cloudwards provided me with this comparison chart to help with smart selection.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS. Apps like Evernote and Trelloare excellent systems to track projects and prioritize tasks. You can even share projects so group partners and parents can see progress and help keep track of deadlines.
ONLINE EDUCATIONAL TOOLS. There are so many online educational tools being developed every day I can’t possibly offer the best and the greatest. However, longtime favorites include the Skype so kids can form study groups and share homework information, Khan Academy or Learning Birdfor online lessons and homework help, iTunes University for a library of free educational resources, StudyBlue for user-created flashcards and study guides, XMind or Coggle for mind mapping and project collaboration, and Cold Turkey to block apps, websites, or even the entire Internet until your work is done. Your teen’s school will likely suggest a variety of tools at the beginning of the year to optimize parent communication and support. Set it up and use it!
Most of us learn organization and efficiency through the school of hard knocks. However, tanking your grades in high school during this learning period can have serious consequences when it comes to college opportunity. Instead of abandoning your child to digital overwhelm and long-term academic consequence, I suggest you start off the school year with a setup day for online tools and encouraging instruction. By teaching winning learning, organization, and study strategies, your teens will not only feel loved and supported with a strong parent-child alliance, but they will also start a trajectory of learning success that sets the stage for excellence. That’s a feel-good parenting job that will pay off for a lifetime.
Digital technology (screen media) has increasingly become an important part of modern education. And despite the fact that many parents would rather avoid screen media altogether, it is here to stay. Just as many of us struggle to keep our kids Internet safe at home, parents frequently express concern about Internet risk through school-required technology. Today I interviewed Dr. Jay Greelinger, Director of Instructional Technology for Pleasant Valley School District (PVSD), to help us understand how schools keep our kids Internet safe.
Who is Dr. Jay Greelinger?
Dr. Greelinger started his career as an elementary school teacher, then a middle school dean, and finally an elementary school principal before he earned his doctorate degree in educational leadership. This means he is an expert with instructional technology rather than information technology, or as he put it, “a teacher with a penchant for tech.” With his teaching tech expertise, he has spearheaded many exciting tech projects at PVSD including personal Dell Chromebooks, digital citizenship classroom and parent curriculums, and makerspaces (student centers that provide technology and 3-dimensional materials for educational opportunity).
Today’s article is about how PVSD addresses screen risk for their students, both in terms of technological filtering of online content and skill building for good digital citizenship.
Applicable federal and state legislation:
Public schools must meet federal and statutory requirements when it comes to protecting student data and student access to content. Here are quick summaries of the key pieces of legislation designed to maintain student privacy and safety. (Come back for the links after you’re done reading the article for more information).
FERPA is a Federal law that protects the privacy of student education records. The law applies to all schools that receive funds under an applicable program of the U.S. Department of Education. FERPA gives parents certain rights with respect to their children’s education records. These rights transfer to the student when he or she reaches the age of 18 or attends a school beyond the high school level.
COPPA imposes certain requirements on operators of websites or online services directed to children under 13 years of age and on operators of other websites or online services that have actual knowledge that they are collecting personal information online from a child under 13 years of age.
CIPA was enacted by Congress in 2000 to address concerns about children’s access to obscene or harmful content over the Internet. CIPA imposes certain requirements on schools or libraries that receive discounts for Internet access or internal connections through the E-rate program – a program that makes certain communications services and products more affordable for eligible schools and libraries. In early 2001, the FCC issued rules implementing CIPA and provided updates to those rules in 2011.
This bill would prohibit an operator of an Internet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application from knowingly engaging in targeted advertising to students or their parents or legal guardians, using covered information to amass a profile about a K–12 student, selling a student’s information, or disclosing covered information, as provided. The bill would require an operator to implement and maintain reasonable security procedures and practices appropriate to the nature of the covered information, to protect the information from unauthorized access, destruction, use, modification, or disclosure, and to delete a student’s covered information if the school or district requests deletion of data under the control of the school or district.
What does this mean for PVSD students?
It means that schools take student privacy very seriously. If student data is required for use beyond its educational aspect (e.g., advertising or research through a digital resource vendor like Google or Discovery Education), PVSD must obtain parental consent.
It also means that schools take student online safety very seriously. This year all PVSD sixth graders received their own Dell Chromebooks. These devices can be used at school or at home for academic use or entertainment. PVSD is therefore obligated, to the best of their ability, to filter inappropriate online content on the Chromebooks. It is PVSD’s plan to provide all middle schoolers Chromebooks by year three.
How does Pleasant Valley School District filter computer and Chromebook content?
Pleasant Valley School District (PVSD) utilizes two filtering programs for onsite computer and student Chromebooks, Lightspeed and GoGuardian.
Back in 2008, PVSD researched the filtering programs offered by four major suppliers for school/business filtering. They selected Lightspeed Systems Web Filter, a K12-focused company that provides a customizable filter for all screen media content with the goal of blocking harmful material while still allowing ample access to educational material. Types of content that is blocked includes pornography, drugs, academic dishonesty, gambling, and specific sites, like particular YouTube channels and videos.
Dr. Greelinger admits that his biggest challenge is “keeping up with the countless websites and slang terms that can get through the filter until they’re identified.” But with school tech devices in place rather than student cell devices, PVSD is better able to filter content than ever. Teachers and administrative staff realize that nobody can prevent kids from making bad choices. But by teaching digital citizenship in a group format and counseling kids individually, school staff can determine whether counseling or discipline is necessary on a case-by-case basis. In agreement with GetKidsInternetSafe philosophy, Dr. Greelinger stressed that relationships are our most powerful tool for safety.
In addition to PVSD’s Lightspeed content filter, all PVSD Chromebooks and PVSD Google accounts logged into by other screen devices are filtered by GoGuardian. There are no workarounds. In fact, if a student tries to do a hard reset on their Chromebook, it gets disabled.
With the GoGuardian filtering tool installed on all PVSD Chromebooks and Google accounts, school staff has access to a real-time log that shows exactly what each student is working on, complete with aggregate history reports. Even better, Dr. Greelinger and school principals receive real-time notifications anytime a student searches for inappropriate content.
He reports they get an average of 10-12 flagged activities a day, but only one or two that are actionable. Google assigns a threat level to each notification. An example of a report that doesn’t need action is when a student searched for the term “homo erectus” during history class. Older middle school students tend to generate more notifications, because they search more controversial topics like legalization of drugs for class projects.
How is PVSD using social media?
PVSD has a Facebook page and a Twitter page for fun and informational posts. Images (and first names) of children are only included if parents signed the consent form in their first day packet. This is a fun way to see PVSD events and keep up to date with fun educational activities. For example, during my recent GetKidsInternetSafe presentation at back-to-school night at Camarillo Heights STEM, Dr. Greelinger had his own personal twitter party, tweeting quotes and announcements as I mentioned them. From there PVSD parents favorited and retweeted the information. This is an awesome way to share information to parents real-time.
How are PVSD teachers being trained to teach digital citizenship?
Last year PVSD narrowed down the scope and sequence of CommonSense Media’s comprehensive digital citizenship curriculum to develop classroom lesson plans. Efforts were made to match digital citizenship topics with classes (e.g., online searching and researching/website validity for science, cyberbullying for social studies, and academic honesty/plagiarism for language arts).
Starting next year, PVSD intends to provide complimentary home curriculums so parents can reinforce digital citizenship concepts at home. These lesson plans bring in writing and communication skills with the goal of being preventative rather than reactive (another shared mission with GKIS).
PVSD has four teachers on assignment who dedicate full-time (and one half-time) support for teachers with technology implementation. One specializes with STEM, one with makerspaces and collaboration, one with writing, and one half-time for math.
Thanks to PVSD and Dr. Greelinger for their support of Camarillo students and for your collaborative partnership with GetKidsInternetSafe. As our schools and homes get more technologically savvy, parents need and appreciate the support to keep us up with our digital native offspring!
If you’re ready to get serious about Internet safety in your home, the GKIS Screen Safety Toolkit is an easy but effective introduction to home strategies that prevent Internet risks for years to come.
I’m the mom psychologist who will help you GetYourKidsInternetSafe.
Thanks to CSUCI intern, Katherine Carroll for researching ChatGPT.
