Internet safety in U-46

Phil Morris, manager of technology for the Kane County Regional Office of Education, is scheduled to give presentations at all five Elgin Area School District U-46 high schools on Internet safety.

Below are excerpts from a recent conversation with Morris. Some answers are edited for length and clarity.

Q. What is the most important thing for parents to know about Internet safety?

A. The key right now is we really need to communicate with parents a lot about what cyber bullying is, and how technology is now a key component to bullying.

Q. What are some of the media that kids use to cyber-bully?

A. In real-world bullying, you're talking about the school grounds or the classroom. In cyber bullying, it's the same purpose, to frighten or harass, but it's done via social networking sites like MySpace and facebook.com, text messaging, interactive gaming sites like Xbox Live. It puts people behind the screen and makes them anonymous.

Q. How are local schools handling cyber bullying?

A. They all have their own disciplinary plans. Many times they will involve the police liaison officer if it moves outside school bounds.

Q. What information do you provide that surprises parents the most?

A. I go through a lot of data with them, and one that really tends to surprise them is the number of kids (37 percent of 130,000 teens surveyed) who feel freer to do what they want on the Internet rather than the real world.

Q. What else surprises parents?

A. That you need to be able to parent now in the real world and in the virtual world, but there are a lot of similarities in the worlds. We learn the concept of don't talk to strangers almost from day one. We need to apply that same concept to the Internet.

Another thing: You would never drop your kid off at the mall at 1 a.m. and let them wander around. But parents are letting kids log in at 1 in the morning and don't know what they're doing.

Q. What are some of the latest sites teens are using that parents might not know about?

A. A lot of kids are getting into virtual gaming sites like Second Life and Habbo Hotel. There are new ones popping up every day.

Q. What are some real-life situations you've encountered concerning Internet safety and schools?

A. We've had situations where a teacher received some inappropriate e-mail, and schools asked us to try to see where it came from.

One time, after a presentation, I had three girls come up to me and say one of their friends was going to meet someone who she'd met online. And they'd checked to see if he went to the school he said he went to, and there was no such person.

I told them to talk to their school liaison officer because they could have information that could lead to a sexual predator.

• Morris will present at 7 p.m. Dec. 4 at South Elgin High School.

Additional programs are slated for Jan. 17 at Larkin High School, Feb. 5 at Elgin High School, Feb. 19 at Bartlett High School, and April 1 at Streamwood High School. All programs will run 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the school's auditorium.

Youths and the Net

• 23 percent of nursery school students use the Internet.

• 32 percent of kindergarten students use the Internet.

• 80 percent of high school students use the Internet.

• 58 percent of 130,000 students surveyed admit to using the Internet dangerously, inappropriately or illegally.

• 20 percent have met face-to-face with someone they met online.

• 14 percent have received mean or threatening messages while on the Internet.

• 15 percent have given out personal information to someone they have met online.

• 37 percent feel more free to do what they want in cyberspace than in the real world.

• 25 percent feel better or more positive about themselves while online than in the real world.

Source: U.S. Department of Education 2005 statistics; I-SAFE, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting youths online.