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.

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.

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.

Google+ is Google’s social networking service and until now it’s been closed to teens. The Google+ team delayed teens’ access so that they can build a safe and sensible social networking environment for teens from the ground up rather than retrofitting one later. Our friends at ConnnectSafely.org have developed “A Parent’s Guide to Google +” that explains the service and its approach to safety and security. Check it out here.

Today Verizon Wireless started spotlighting Net Safety Tips On The Go, the first-ever digital safety and security advice app for Android smartphones and tablets as part of National Internet Safety Month. Net Safety Tips OTG is also featured in the Parental Controls Center, Verizon Wireless’ comprehensive website with information to help consumers manage and create a digital experience that’s just right for their families.

Net Safety Tips On The Go, developed by GetNetWise.org, is available to Verizon Wireless customers through V CAST Apps.  V CAST Apps gives Verizon Wireless customers an ever-expanding selection of games, productivity tools, entertainment and news apps.  We are pleased to be featured so prominently by Verizon Wireless, whose dedication to family safety and personal privacy is astonishing.

The content for Net Safety Tips OTG is contributed by three of the other premier online safety education organizations in the world — Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely.org, OnGuardOnline.gov. This innovative app makes it easy for consumers and families to keep up with mobile and online privacy, safety, and security issues using their Android smartphone or tablet. Net Safety Tips OTG is also looking for additional content partners. Contact us at info@netsafetyapp.org

If you have an Android phone or tablet download the App from the Market by searching for “Net Safety Tips.” Visit http://netsafetyapp.org/ for more information.

Additional Links

Verizon Wireless Press Release

Now Available in V CAST Apps: Net Safety Tips On The Go – The First-Ever Online Safety and Security Education App

FierceWireless Article

Verizon, Google team on Android digital safety and security app
June 20, 2011, By Jason Ankeny

GetNetWise is proud to contribute content to the “First-Ever Online Safety & Security Education App Available on Smartphone Platform.” It was developed by GNW’s parent, Internet Education Foundation, along with Google and Verizon and the content is contributed by three of the other premier online safety education organizations in the world — Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely.org, OnGuardOnline.gov. This innovative app makes it easy for consumers and families to keep up with mobile and online privacy, safety, and security issues using their Android smartphone or tablet.

If you have an Android phone or tablet download the App from the Market by searching for “Net Safety Tips.” Visit http://netsafetyapp.org/ for more information. The press release is here.

ConnectSafely.org, in partnership with the iKeepSafe Coalition, has announced today their new publication, A Parent’s Guide to Facebook. This new resource for “parents, educators, and everybody looking for the basics on the world’s most popular social networking site – what it is, why young people use it, how to turn it into a great parenting tool, and how to optimize its privacy settings for teens.” The guide is available for download in PDF format and features “hands-on, step-by-step instructions and illustrations, as well as parenting points on safety, privacy, and reputation protection. It covers both cellphone- and computer-based use of Facebook and the site’s newest features, including Places, Groups, and the latest privacy updates.” ConnectSafely.org and iKeepSafe are both partners of the GetNetWise initiative.

Today Microsoft just launch their much-anticipated Kinect for Xbox 360 along with new Family Safety Settings. If you’re not familiar with the Xbox Kinect, you’ll be amazed after watching the video on the Xbox site. Last month GetNetWise Advisory Board members were invited to an advanced demo for Kinect. Later we received an extremely professional briefing by Microsoft’s top safety and security executives. In short, Kinect is not only amazing, it also takes into account a myriad set of privacy and safety issues so that it is as family safe as possible. In David Pogue’s NY Times review he writes “The Kinect’s astonishing technology creates a completely new activity that’s social, age-spanning and even athletic.”

At GetNetWise.org we were also pleased to see that Microsoft has updated its already robust family safety settings to accompany the Kinect launch. Below is a list of new family safe features provided by Microsoft executives.

New Family Settings include:

• Intelligent default settings for children, teens and adults. When Console Safety is turned “On,” Xbox automatically assigns default privacy and activity settings for each Xbox LIVE member, based on age. For example, for children under 13, the default settings include blocking profile sharing and text, voice and video chat, and turning on Family Programming. These settings can be individually customized by parents.
• Video Kinect. Allows users to video chat over Xbox LIVE with friends and family. Family Settings automatically block this feature for Child profiles, but parents and caregivers can customize whether (and with whom) their children can video chat.
• Kinect Share. Enables users to share pictures captured during Kinect games like “Kinect Adventures!” on social media pages like Facebook. Kinect Share is automatically blocked for Child profiles but parents can decide to allow this feature for any profile.
• Family Programming. When turned on, Family Programming prevents the display of mature content on the dashboard and highlights family-friendly entertainment.
• Game Title Exceptions. Parents have the ability to allow their family members to play specific games with content ratings above the console’s designated maximum if they deem the title appropriate.