CyberSafety Education Workshops

Engaging parents just got easier

Parent workshops are a great way to kick off your media education program at your school, but they can be a lot of work to prepare. Take some help from Common Sense by using one of the prepared presentations. We’ve provided PowerPoint presentations and complete scripts to make it easy to host a parent education night on raising kids who use media and technology safely and responsibly.

Our parent education workshops are designed to help parents think about:

• What's new about today's media landscape?
• What opportunities and challenges does this present to kids?
• What can parents do to raise kids that use media safely and responsibly?

Because kids at different ages encounter different challenges, we’ve designed sample presentations for various grades. Each presentation is to provide an overview of kids’ digital lives, as well as some concrete tips for parents.

The presentations are designed to take about 30-45 minutes. We recommend allowing an additional 15-20 for conversation, which you can facilitate using our discussion guides. We also recommend reviewing the presentation ahead of time and modifying it to suit your school’s specific needs. To further engage parents and deepen the impact of your presentation, we recommend distributing a few parent tip sheets at your event, as well as a Family Media Agreement that parents can use to help discuss media guidelines with their kids. Finally, put up this flyer in a public place to remind parents about what they learned in the workshop.

Workshop materials for elementary school

Download the presentation “Digital Life: Our Kids' Connect Culture” (Powerpoint | Script)
Download the presentation in Spanish (Powerpoint | Script)

Workshop materials for middle and high schools

Download the presentation “Digital Life: Our Kids' Connect Culture” (Powerpoint | Script)
Download the presentation in Spanish (Powerpoint | Script)

Rev Up Conference Presentation

Intro to Google Docs on Prezi

The State of The Internet Summer 2011

Created by: OnlineSchools.org

What Social Media is to...

Today... I'm connecting with people from around the US & other countries. I am co-presenting virtually with colleagues across the state @ ISTE 2011 conference happening in Philadelphia. I am sharing ideas on how we are all trying to improve the education, relationships of staff, students, and parents, and with limited funding and access in our public schools.

Since my profesional title has the word "Technology" embedded, I am always asked questions like "What is the latest on the tech front?" My response... student academic achievement for all of our students!!! I get my percentage of puzzled looks and smiles (or the 0_o look if it's virtual). The latest version of this question is 'Why do you want to know what everyone is doing online with these Twitters, Facebookers, and such?" I try not to return their answer with a puzzled look myself so I usually try to smile as I compose my response. 

As an educator for over 17 years, I cannot even begin to think where I can come to a point in my career where I can say "That's It!... I'm done!!!...I have all I need to know for my profession and can teach anyone who stands, sits, or virtually connects with me!" Yet, I still see this today with many people who are educators. Now that would be silly. Done? We are never done. Technology applications, tools and resources ae my techniques to my strategies in my pedagogy. This is not new to any educator, new or seasoned.

So why do I use social media tools, resources, and apps? I use them to teach, to learn, to inspire, to connect with experts, students, family, friends... to reach out into our shrinking world and be part of the largest communities on whatever subject I want to learn, teach or just be engaged in. I connect, contribute, and collaborate on social networks so I can continue to learn how to best help our educators, students, and families:-)

And now... back to connecting with people who are doing the same:-)