It’s not too late to create a submission for the Safer Online Teen Challenge. Our friends at Microsoft are encouraging teens to unleash their creativity and help educate folks to Stay Safer Online. The contest is open to teens 13 to 18 and runs until April 12, 2013. Winners can win prizes like a tablet or Xbox. Learn more here.

GetNetWise founding contributor, Larry Magid, just announced a competition called “What’s Your Story” that asks kids to create videos about what the “Good side of the Internet looks like.” There are actually cash prizes for young filmmakers sponsored by Trend Micro. If you have an aspiring filmmaker in your house click here for more information.

WASHINGTON, DC – The Internet Education Foundation commends the House for passing the “Academic Competition Resolution of 2013.” The Resolution creates an annual academic competition in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) and paves the way for the first-ever “app” competition fostered by Congress. IEF applauds Rep. Candice Miller and Rep. Robert Brady for sponsoring this important resolution and Rep. Cantor and Rep. Pelosi for their leadership and support.

Over the past year IEF staff have worked tirelessly with the co-chairs of the Congressional Internet Caucus, Rep. Bob Goodlatte and Rep. Anna G. Eshoo, to urge the creation of a Congressional App Challenge. Both co-chairs rose in support of the Congressional App Challenge as a step in the right direction to the future of jobs in America and its competitiveness globally. Our efforts were aided by a steering committee of app competition experts representing Google, Blackberry, AT&T, the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) and Motorola Mobility.

“One after another Members from both sides of the aisle rose in support of the STEM education Resolution during a break in the sequester debate,” said IEF president Jerry Berman. He added, “I was heartened to see a group of technology leaders in Congress act to invest in the future of American jobs and of the economy: young STEM-educated constituents.”

IEF coordinates the work of the Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee, which supports the goals of the Congressional Internet Caucus. The ICAC does not support or oppose any policy agenda; however, it shares the concern of most Americans that our students are falling behind in many areas of STEM education. We look forward to working with Congress and the Committee on House Administration to support this competition going forward. During his floor statements, Internet Caucus co-chair Goodlatte said, “This competition will motivate our young people to further pursue programming and other technology related educational opportunities. It will also enable them to showcase their programming skills on a national stage while at the same time promoting the value of STEM education and careers.”

Co-chair Eshoo said, “Building on the success of the Congressional Arts Competition, which for more than 30 years has recognized and encouraged artistic talent among our nation’s youth, an apps competition will foster interest in STEM education, which is just what our country needs to prepare for the future.”

The Internet Education Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public and policymakers about the potential of a decentralized global Internet to promote communications, commerce and democracy. Its board members ensure the balanced of the organization’s efforts and consist of public interest groups, corporations, and associations representative of the diversity of the Internet community.

Contact:
Leonard Hyman
lhyman@netcaucus.org
(202) 638-4370 x129

More and more technology is the go to gift from parents and from Santa around the holidays. Once the boxes are unboxed make sure to take a few moments setting up parental controls on those game consoles, iPads, and phones this year. The USA Today’s blog has some great advice for parents in a blog post titled “Setting up your child’s new tech gifts“. Check it out.

Collier, Lordan, Sheburne, and Kent to Co-host “How Today’s Digital Natives Can Enhance their Online Reputations” on December 8th

Google Hangout information
Saturday, December 8, 6pm Eastern
Live on the Google+ page of Dan Kent
Hashtag #netlit

Session description

This Google Education On Air provides practical and actionable strategies to students enhance their online reputation as they seek scholarships, employment, and admission to competitive colleges. We’ll also discuss today’s online reputation landscape and what’s in store for the future. What are best practice examples of engaging students when talking about online reputation and where are the most useful resources? Tune in, join the discussion, and ask your students’ toughest online reputation questions.

More and more we’re living our lives and expressing ourselves through email. Every aspect of our lives are communicated through email — work, personal, and intimate details are shared. The recent scandal involving CIA Director Patraeus has reminded us all that those email communications are as secure as we would like them to be. Of course, Director Patraeus’ emails were unearthed by the F.B.I. using the governments vast powers of investigation and surveillance. Regardless, we all need to recognize that our work emails, our family emails, and our intimate emails can be unearthed in myriad ways. Please be careful when committing your most intimate thoughts to email. Here are some thoughts from the Online Mom about email privacy.

I have been using long before it became popular. That lack of popularity meant that virus author saw little value in writing for the Mac platform. Once, several years ago during the spyware epidemic, a work colleague of mine mentioned that he was switching to the Mac platform because he was sick of viruses and spyware. At that moment I knew it wouldn’t be long before Mac were a target of malware authors.

Now that the market share for Macs has risen the platform is more likely to be under attack — which was foreseeable. Don’t forget to take precautions and install antivirus software. The security firm Sophos provides free Mac antivirus software.

Last year leading researchers danah boyd and Alice Marwick wrote a frank paper about how teens view and manage their privacy. This extremely influential research piece forced many of us to rethink our preconceived notions of how teens view privacy and how they deal with privacy issues. And, it provided an unvarnished assessment of the role parents play in that equation.

PBS affiliate KQED’s MindShift wrote a very good piece based on the boyd/Marwick research that’s more accessible. It’s worth a read. We’re thrilled that great research is starting to be reflected in journalistic reporting on these issues.

Yesterday the Washington Post’s On Parenting Blog wrote an article titled “Instagram: What parents need to know.” The article discusses whether Instagram, a social camera and photo editing app for iPhone and Android phones, is safe for use by youth. The article was conspicuously written shortly after Facebook announced that it would buy the little app company for $1 billion (No, that’s not a typo. “B” as in Billion). The article references a helpful article written by YourSphere media about that topic.

The takeaway is that Instagram is a social photo app network. Anything that takes a photo and uploads it should be treated with caution — as the article rightly points out. The article also notes the possibility that the app can be used for bullying. All true. But, I think it’s worth noting that most Internet and online technologies pose that same possibility and that the overwhelming percentage of teens and tweens manage to deal pretty well with those pitfalls. Beyond that there seems to be nothing inherently unsafe about Instagram. The only issue we could see with the article was that during a recent Android installation of Instagram there seemed to be no age requirement and statement of age as the article suggests. Perhaps it’s only in iPhone OS.

Of course, sexting and bullying are real problems that parents must be mindful of. Our friends at ConnectSafely.org have writting some great pieces on the pitfalls of bullying and how to deal with sexting.

Many of us use a lot of different Google services from GMail to Blogger.com. For a long time Google has centered your privacy report in its Dashboard where you can see your data practices across those services. Today, Google introduced an upgrade to that service called Account Activity. Here’s a Google blog post describing how to activate it. Basically, it gives you more info about how you use Google services across the board. Pretty cool for the privacy conscience.