Schools teach Internet safety

Submitted Photo Students at Gentry Primary School learn about being safe when accessing the Internet.
Submitted Photo Students at Gentry Primary School learn about being safe when accessing the Internet.

GENTRY -- At Gentry Primary School, students are learning about Internet safety during computer time with teacher Sharon Selvidge.

Students in kindergarten through the second grade are being taught ​tips​ on how to be safe on the internet with a lesson titled "Netiquette and Cyber Bullying."

Some of the topics ​covered​ were:

• Students are taught that when they use technology, at school or at home, they should be smart and tell adults when they receive a mean or inappropriate message instead of responding.

• How to be safe when using technology by keeping passwords and personal information secret or only telling the information to a trusted adult. Students should not share information on where they live or go to school with anyone on the Internet.

• Learning how to be a good friend when using technology by thinking before saying or typing anything.

• Students learned that it is important to be careful when they send messages or pictures using technology, to make sure it is something their parents and teachers would approve of, because anything sent using technology could be made visible to ​anyone​ in the world and could even be used to hurt them at any time now or in the future.

​At the end of the lesson, students took the Online Safety Pledge:

I will tell my parents or trusted adult if someone is bothering me or calling me names while I am on the Internet.

I will never be mean to anyone while I am on the computer. I won't call them names or make fun of them.

I will be a buddy to anyone who is being called names or made fun of on the computer.

I will not bully someone just because he or she was already mean to me on the Internet.

General News on 10/22/2014