Digital Education

Turning the Internet into a safe space for students is a topic that permeates almost all the stories I write about ed-tech, especially when we talk about emerging technologies which make use of the collaborative nature of the Web. I had an interesting discussion yesterday with Rachel Smith, the vice president of services for the New Media Consortium, a network of organizations that examines new technologies. The security topic apparently came up quite a bit during the writing of the consortium's Horizon Report, which analyzes emerging technologies, their impact on education, and the time until they are likely implemented.

Looking at the differences between the higher education edition of the report and the K-12 edition, it's clear that online safety plays a huge role in how quickly emerging technologies can be adopted in public schools.

We recently held an online chat edweek.org that covered some of these topics called Safeguarding Your School in Cyberspace. Our guests answered questions about how to safely navigate Web 2.0 tools, how to address Internet safety in class, how to deal with cyberbullying, and what teachers need to know in order to foster a safe online environment, among other topics. Check out the transcript for more useful information.

Coming up on April 23 at 4 p.m. Eastern/1 p.m. Pacific, the Consortium for School Networking will be hosting an online presentation that sounds like it will focus on the more technical aspects of online security. Linda Sharp, the project director for CoSN's Cyber Security initiative and Dwayne Alton, the technology director for Lee County schools in Florida will be discussing tips and techniques to keep districts cybersafe. Click here to register for that event.