Why Neknominate is so popular with Young People and what Parents and Schools should do about it.

As NekNominate claims its third UK victim (Salesman becomes third British victim of NekNominate craze after downing two PINTS of gin and posting video on the internet Daily Mail 16/02/2014), there is little doubt that the latest Facebook craze is dangerous - but that indeed is its attraction for young people.

The NekNominate phenomenon brings together four drivers of the culture of young people:

1. The propensity to explore drinking limits.  This is not a new phenomenon: young people have played drinking games since the invention of alcohol. 
2. The desire to take risks. Research by Professor Sarah-Jane Blakemore of University College, London, demonstrates that risk-taking is a key feature of the adolescent brain. She has found that the limbic system of young people aged 16 to 24 is hypersensitive and rewards risk-taking. 'They are particularly prone to taking risks when they are with their friends.' (See Sarah-Jayne Blakemore's TED Talk: The mysterious workings of the adolescent brain). The fact is that young people are wired to take risks. This goes a long-way to explain the  Gap-year bungee-jump phenomenon.
3. The need to be loved/ respected by one's peers is a well-documented driver of many aspects of human society. Family, employment, philanthropy in its many forms and, more recently, celebrity have provided these for generations. Today, the Internet provides the ability to achieve "fifteen minutes of fame" and to engage instantly no only with friends and family but with an audience that twenty years ago was only available to TV celebrities and leading politicians.
4. The ability to publish information about oneself to the Internet. There is a tendency among many people 'to live out their lives' on Facebook. Social Media provide instant feedback and reaffirmation - friends can comment and 'like'; 'hits' and 'retweets' are counted, all fueling the need to be loved and respected. The problem with this is that young people have little concept that publishing to the Internet is like having a digital tattoo: it is very difficult to get rid of what you have written once it is published.

The combination of these factors mean that young people are competing for each other's attention on a world stage and the threshold for notoriety and 'respect' are consequently higher. As the rewards go up, so do the stakes and the consequence is that the entry level for the respect of one's peers is for NekNominees to risk their own lives.

So what can we do as parents and educators?

Well we can't really stop it or ban it.  The phenomenon is out there and young people will always find ways around any parental controls that we put in place. 

Here are four antidotes to the NekNominate phenomenon.

1. Ensure that young people not only are educated about safe drinking limits, but also that they know what to do if they or one of their friends go too far.
2. Channel the risk-taking.  Given that young people are wired to take risks, it makes sense to provide young people opportunities to take risks in controlled environments. Outdoor education has a huge part to play in this - rock climbing, skiing, expeditions take young people out of their comfort zones and can fulfil the need to take risks, but within the bounds of overall safety. 
3. Provide 'real-world' opportunities to demonstrate love and respect for young people. Parents and schools need to celebrate the positive contributions that young people make. Most importantly young people need to feel loved by their parents (and this is often best achieved by setting consistent boundaries for them).
4. Ensure that young people not only are Internet-aware, but that they have people to talk to when times get tough. Extended family and a school's counselling service can play a very important role in this.

Pressures on Young People: Sex, Drugs, Rock'n'roll and Digital Tattoos

A presentation to Berkhamsted School Y9 Parents given on Wednesday 27 November 2013

 

This Presentation included two videos produced by the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty:

How technology is changing education in our independent schools - An overview

Introduction 

Great claims have been made over the past twenty years about the impact that ICT would have on teaching and learning, most of which only succeeded in disappointing. However, at long last, the combination of reliable ICT networks, affordable equipment, innovative educational software and an increasingly ICT-literate body of teachers means that we are beginning to see ICT making a real difference to the day-to-day education in independent schools. The impact of new technologies is being seen in every area of school life: academic, pastoral, co-curricular and in school administration.

Academic 

Martini Learning. Widespread access to new technologies has been one of the most important catalysts of the shift in emphasis from classrooms being about teaching, to them being about learning. Pupils now have access to web-based to learning resources at school, at home and on the move. Learning is no longer confined to the classroom or to the prep room, it happens “anytime, anyplace, anywhere”: we are in the age of “Martini learning”. Most Independent senior schools now have the necessary WIFI infrastructure in place to support mobile learning and this is likely to be greatest area of growth over the coming years.

Online Apps and Collaboration. Some of the most innovative work that is going on in schools at the moment surrounds the use of Online Apps (such as the Google Apps suite and MS Office 365). These technologies allow pupils and teachers to collaborate online by working on the same document. Teachers are taking tasks that traditionally were set as homework (say, read and note chapter 7 of The Lord of the Flies under the following headings . . . ) and developing them into class collaborative piece of work. The result is that pupils gain a range of insights from their peers whilst practising the important life skill of working with others. Anecdotal evidence is that pupils make a greater effort when working collaboratively because of the public aspect of publishing ideas to their friends. Online collaborative working is so popular that many schools are finding that pupils find it their preferred form of independent learning, setting up shared documents to work on homework without any teacher input or encouragement at all.

Social Network CPD. Collaborative new technologies are also transforming the staff room. The rise of social media platforms (such as Twitter, online forums and blogs) has heralded an unprecedented period of collaboration and mutual support. Teachers now are able to share lesson ideas not only within the department but also with colleagues around the country. This has both facilitated the spread of ‘best practice’ and established an important vehicle for INSET.

Pastoral 

e-Safety. Independent schools pride themselves in having outstanding levels of pastoral care and devote time and money to providing it. The Internet has brought with it a number of important challenges for all schools and e-Safety now has a central place on any PSHE programme sitting firmly alongside drugs and alcohol as one of the greatest threats to young people. Whilst many of the issues are fundamentally the same ones with which schools have been dealing for years (cyber-bullying is bullying, Internet porn is pornography, cyber-safety is personal safety), there are a number of new challenges. Arguably, the greatest dangers that young people face come, not from what they can download from the Internet, but from what they are able to publish to it. Ultimately, it is impossible to control pupils’ access to the Internet and the only way forward is to educate the young people in our care to use the Internet responsibly.

Communication. One of the greatest pastoral challenges that new technologies have brought for independent schools is that pupils have immediate access to their parents; and that parents, in turn, have immediate access to teachers, houseparents, and senior leaders. Minor issues and incidents, which only ten years ago would have been dealt with in-school and forgotten before the end of the day, are blown out of all proportion, causing unnecessary anguish, management time and paper-trails.

Co-curricular 

One of exciting benefits of cheap and ready access to new technologies is that it is relatively easy for pupils to do things today that in the past would have taken hours and an enormous budget. Every pupil now has the opportunity to make a video, their smartphone the camera and their laptop the editing studio; to publish articles and to engage a world-wide audience. There is no doubt that new technologies have given a new status to creativity. In a world where YouTube videos and blogposts can go viral – the opportunity for “15 minutes of fame” is there for all. Independent schools are well placed to harness the creativity in young people in a range of co-curricular clubs and societies of which we (of a previous generation) could only dream.

School Administration 

As with all organisations, independent schools have implemented a range of new ICT initiatives to improve school administration. It is generally accepted that ICT will not save schools money (Bursars stopped asking, “when will we see a return on this investment?” years ago) but it has raised the bar. Independent schools undoubtedly hold and analyse more data on pupils than ever before. 

Communication with parents has changed beyond belief. On the positive side, almost all independent senior schools have ditched hand-written reports and moved to a database system. No longer do teachers have to queue up in the common room waiting for the ledger containing Form 3A’s reports, but they can log into the school database from the comfort of their home. Many schools are now making the move to publishing reports only online through the ‘Parent Portal’. Whilst letters home lost in school bags are a thing of the past, one of the greatest challenges caused by new technologies that schools face today is the unprecedented level of email traffic that flows between home and school. Most schools (and, indeed, parents) can’t cope. 

Many schools have even embraced biometric technologies using them for registration, library withdrawals and even to control door entry about the school site.

Conclusion

Some people talk about ICT in Schools as if it were a project that one day will be complete. That is about as wrong as asking, “When will the London skyline be finished?” Independent schools have an excellent record at harnessing new technologies for education – and we can be confident that that will be the way of the future.

An article written for the Independent Schools Show magazine

Do I have a Right to be Forgotten?

An excellent Radio Four programme on the ethics and legalities of gaining control of our digital presence.

R4: Do I have a Right to be Forgotten?

"When Emma Barnett, a tech-savvy 27 year old typed her name into a search engine she found photos from her past she would really rather forget. And she is not alone; millions of people are sharing photos, tweets and status updates with friends every day - later discovering, regretfully, that they live online forever.

But with the European Union hoping to enshrine a "right to be forgotten" will it become possible to own your online life? On this journey Emma discovers what rights she has to delete material from the internet and the implications this has on how we record events and write history."

Online Bullying - Cracking down on the Internet Bullies

Latest figues show that one-in-three teenagers is a victim of harassment, intimidation or bullying through the Internet. Herewith an investigation by Tonight

Protecting and Supervising Young Teens on the Internet

Protecting our children goes with the territory of being a parent. We warn and train them from a young age about the dangers of the fireplace, crossing the road and encountering strangers. When it comes to the internet these principles still apply, even if sometimes we feel that we are not qualified to do so.

It is perhaps too easy for us to install a "net nanny" program on our home PC and assume that that we have fulfilled our parenting responsibilities in this area. If we are to ensure that our children using the Internet wisely and safely, we ourselves need to know our way around the Internet. It is important that we share and talk about their online experiences with our children. Just as with crossing the road, we cannot be there all the time, but it is worthwhile spending sometime going through the basics together with them.

Young people often come across as being highly competent on computers, but my experience is that they have a blindspot when it comes to protecting their privacy on the Internet, so don’t be afraid to ask the awkward questions.

Research has found that the more often "significant adults" talk to young people about their experiences online (and occasionally monitor what they are doing), the less likely a young person is to engage in risky behaviour (defined as disclosing personal information, meeting up offline with someone they met online, or sharing photos with strangers). The young people who did not have the adult intervention were four times more likely to agree to meet up with someone they met online.

As parents, we may have some control over the other people our children encounter in "real space", but we cannot regulate whom our children meet in digital space. However, we can help them to make better decisions about their own safety when online.

Some tips on supervising young teenagers:

• Keep the computer in a public place, preferably with the screen facing into the room, so that it can be seen when wandering by.

• Laptops combined with WIFI mean that it is almost impossible for parents to have any handle on what their child is doing on the Internet. Many parents consider that laptops are most suited to the older teenager.
• Beware that mobile phones with Internet capability are likely to provide unfiltered access to the Internet.

• Set clear rules for Internet use.

• Insist that your children do not share personal information such as their full name, address, phone numbers, full date of birth or passwords with people they meet online.

• Don’t just rely on the “net-nanny”.
• As any School Network Manager will tell you, young people are expert at evading “net-nanny” programs and pass information between themselves on how to do this. [This usually entails going to a site which is listed as safe, which then redirects the user to the desired, banned site].

• The browsing history of a computer keeps a record of the sites that have been visited by a particular user.
• A deleted browsing history is likely to tell you as much as an undeleted one.
• Be aware that most Internet browsers, now allow for “Private Browsing” sessions where no browsing history is recorded.
• If your daughter types ‘POS’ when on a social-networking site or on MSN, it means ‘Parent Over Shoulder’. Draw your own conclusions!
  

Supervision of Social-networking sites:

• Teenagers are unlikely to want you as a “friend” on a social-networking site, but some parents make it a condition of being on Facebook when their children are starting out. It will give you the opportunity to keep an eye on who your child is friends with.
• Parents who have a social networking site profile are much better placed to help their daughter protect her privacy. Parents need to keep up to date with how the privacy settings work and to talk these through with their child.
  

For more on internet safety: see Microsoft's staysafe.org which outlines "10 things you can teach kids to improve their Web safety" and also has some excellent age-related tips:

• Up to age 10
• 11-14 years old
• 15-18 years old

The EU Insafe Website also has some useful information on a range of Internet Safety issues.

This blogpost was based on an article written for the GSA MyDaughter website

Beware: Google just got more personal ....

Google has extended its personal search feature to all users regardless of whether or not you are logged into Google. Yes, that means you.



A helpful feature - or Big Brother? You decide. But either way, don't forget you will need to adapt the settings if you are to remain in control of how your computer managing your personal data.

In the news:
Google extends personalised search to all users Guardian Online 07/12/09
Google’s Personalized Results: The “New Normal” That Deserves Extraordinary Attention

How to be a good cyber-parent

Parents are anxious about what their children are doing online, and unsure what to do, a YouGov survey suggests. So can schools help?

How to be a good cyber parent Guardian PDA Content Blog 30/11/09
Seven in 10 parents demand compulsory online privacy lessons Daily Telegraph 30/10/09

Beyond Censorware: Teaching Web Literacy

A couple of interesting articles on Web Literacy by Cory Doctorow

• Beyond Censorware: Teaching Web Literacy

• Teach kids to be safe on the net by getting them to think critically about censorware

Digital Natives, Social Networking and Privacy

With the way that the Internet is set up today, we routinely trade personal information for services or products. We provide name, address, telephone numbers, date of birth and email addresses and in return we receive a free Facebook or Amazon account or free OpenOffice or whatever. Firms then can use this information for various purposes, most commonly to target advertisements at us.

There is a contractual basis to the way in which young people use social networking sites too - only that here they are trading personal information for popularity. The dynamic seems to be that the more information that you give out the more friends you will have. To some extent this is what we all do in the offline world. When we meet someone new, say at a drinks or dinner party, we trade snippets of personal information about ourselves as part of the "friends-making process". Where we work, where we went on holiday, our favourite film and what music we listen to - such is the stuff of social small-talk.

But when digital natives meet new people on social networking sites they operate in a totally different way - cocktail party conventions do not apply here. They disclose their life story in a single mouse click, disgorging enormous amounts of personal information to relative strangers. What is more, they do it in a digital format that is easy to store, share and publish. This is a real concern.

"Young people who are living their lives mediated by digital technologies will pay a high price...... Most young people are extremely likely to leave something behind in cyberspace which will become a lot like a tattoo - something connected with them that they cannot get rid of later in life, even if they want to, without a great deal of difficulty"

Pafrey and Gasser Born Digital p.53

Those of us of an older generation, whether parents or teachers, have a responsibility to protect young people from themselves. I am staggered by how naive young people can be at times. Let me give you an example.

This week I discovered that there is a Facebook group for students from my school that consists simply of their mobile telephone numbers. For them this is an easy and effective way of getting in touch with their friends. But it is an "open" group: anyone in the world has access to that group. Teenagers cannot see that the juxtaposition of an attractive sixteen year old girl's profile picture and her mobile phone number might attract unwanted attention from a total stranger.

The same principle applies to photographs. Facebook is an outstanding facility for sharing photographs with family and friends - it is easy to upload pictures for all to see. However there are three aspects to this that concern me.

First, the facility to "tag" people in photographs means that your friends can post photographs onto your site. These might not be photographs that you would want there. There are mechanisms both to prevent others from seeing these pictures and to remove unwanted ones from appearing on your site, but often young people, either through ignorance or choice, do not activate these controls.

Secondly, young people do not distinguish between real friends and casual, passing acquaintances. Thus they give instant access to all of their photo album - whether that be holiday snaps or behaving badly at last night's party.

Thirdly, young people do not consider the long term consequences of posting embarrassing photographs. It is clear that employers are using social networking sites to vet employees [see New York Times]. Before posting a picture, young people need to think, "Would I want this picture on the front page of a national paper?" or "Would I be happy for this picture to be attached to my job application?" Lord help the next generation of politicians and celebrities - the gutter press are going to have a field day!

So, how can we as parents and teachers help the next generation?

When our children were young we taught about the dangers of the world around them: they learned from our actions that the cooker was hot and we showed them how to cross the road safely. In the same way, we need to educate young people about the dangers of publishing too much personal information on the Internet. Above all, we need to give them the skills to navigate the digital landscape and to protect their personal information. In this, I believe that we must lead by example. If we are going to have any credibility, teachers and parents need to have a presence in cyberspace and to have mastered these skills ourselves. There is a huge opportunity here for digital natives and their digital immigrant teachers and parents to open up an effective dialogue to share their collective expertise and experience.

For more information see

• Four tips on protecting your personal information on Facebook
• John Pafrey and Urs Gasser Born Digital 2008
• Facebook Safety Pages

Afternote

• Teenager is fired for Facebook remark [27/02/2009]
  

Four tips on protecting your personal information on Facebook

TIP ONE - How to prevent strangers from seeing your Friend list when they search Facebook or when they click on your profile.

1. Go to MY PROFILE
2. Click on SETTINGS - link on the top right hand corner (next to the “Search” facility).
3. Drop down box, click on PRIVACY
4. Then click on SEARCH (2nd in list)
5. You should see a check-box list. UNCHECK the MY FRIEND LIST box (and any others, you might want to do)
6. Click on SAVE CHANGES

Beware that, if you reply to an email in Facebook, that your correspondent will be able to see your Friends for one month.

TIP TWO - How to change your general privacy settings so that only your friends (approved only by you) can see your profile [personal information about you, personal pictures etc.].

1. Go to MY PROFILE
2. Click on SETTINGS - link on the top right hand corner (next to the “Search” facility).
3. Drop down box, click on PRIVACY
4. Click on PROFILE (1st in list)
5. I suggest you change all the drop-down box options to “Only Friends”
6. Click SAVE CHANGES.

Your new settings are operational with immediate effect – you don’t have to sign off and then sign on again.

TIP THREE - How to set up a Limited Profile group of Friends
[A limited profile allows you to distinguish between acquaintances whom you might only like to see certain parts of that profile and real friends whom you might want to see all that you post on your site]

1. Go to FRIENDS
2. Click on the Make a New List button
3. Choose a name, say “Acquaintances”
4. Select your friends whom you want to be part of the “Acquaintances” group
5. Save the List
6. Click on SETTINGS - link on the top right hand corner (next to the “Search” facility).
7. Drop down box, click on PRIVACY
8. Click on PROFILE
9. Click on the drop down menu next to Basic Information
10. Select CUSTOMISE
11. Select the ONLY FRIENDS radio button and type in “Acquaintances” in the EXCEPT box
12. Click Okay
13. Repeat steps 10 to 12 for each of the profile drop down menus.
14. You may like to consider setting up a number of these groups, say for "Family" or "Colleagues" and customise the settings to each of these
15. You will need to allocate your Facebook Friends to these groups
    

TIP FOUR- How to limited who sees your photo albums
[This assumes that you have set up a number of photo albums]

1. Go to the PHOTOS part of your PROFILE
2. Click on ALBUMS
3. Click the ALBUM PRIVACY button
4. Using the drop down menus select who you will allow to see each album

For example, if you want one album just to be seen by your family

1. First set up a group for your "Family" [see Tip 3 above]
2. On the drop down menu for the photograph album, select CUSTOMISE
3. Select the SOME FRIENDS radio button
4. Type in "Family" in the box that appears
   
5. Click OKAY
   

[Thanks to Steph Kirton with her help on Tips One and Two]

Should teachers and pupils be ‘Friends’ on Social Networking Sites?

Traditional, established and agreed boundaries between staff and pupils are being blurred by the way in which Social Networking Sites operate. Many teachers, particularly younger members of staff - who have grown up with social networking being an everyday part of their lives, have Facebook profiles and are accustomed to interacting with the people they meet "offline" through the "online" medium of a social networking site. So should teachers and pupils be ‘Friends’ on Social networking sites?

On the one hand, we might take the view that all contact between staff and pupils in this forum is inappropriate.

• Teachers are expected to keep a professional distance from the pupils whom they teach.
• There should be a clear separation of the private social lives of teachers and that of pupils.
• It would not be appropriate for a teacher to go clubbing with sixth formers, and it is wrong for teachers to reveal too many details of their private life with them.
  
• There is no need for "social networking" to go on between staff and pupils.
  
• With few exceptions, there is little educational benefit from teachers being friends with pupils.

On the other hand, we might take the view that having contact with pupils on a Social Networking site should be encouraged under certain circumstances:

• It is important that teachers are seen to have a presence on Social networking sites - this gives them greater credibility when discussing Internet-related issues.
  
• In some subjects, such as Media Studies and PSHE, it might be wholly appropriate to engage with young people online in this way, as part of the course, or to help them better understand issues of internet safety.
  
• Teachers should be allowed to exercise their professional judgment as to what personal information they choose to share with pupils, afterall they do this in the classroom daily.
  

Certainly it would be unwise for staff to allow pupils access to any information which would compromise their position and authority as a teacher in the school. However, this is sometimes more difficult than one might first expect.

There are basic Internet privacy and safety issues when using social networking sites that apply to both pupils and to staff alike. However careful a teacher is about the material he posts on his site, the problem with Facebook is that it is very easy for other "friends" to post pictures on a teacher's Facebook page through the "tagging" feature. Take the following scenario.

A teacher [let's call him, "John"] goes to a University reunion party. During the party a friend, "Peter", takes a number of photos of the John - dancing with girl friends, having a beer with former drinking mates, or worse. Peter posts them on his own Facebook site and "tags" John in the pictures. These pictures now appear on John's Facebook site. One of John's Facebook "friends", who happens to be one of John's pupils, downloads the pictures from the site before John has even had a chance to view/edit/ remove them. The pupil then emails the picture to other school friends and prints the pictures and pins them up around school.

Clearly there are "limited profile" features within Facebook, which would prevent this happening. It is possible to run a Facebook account on two levels: with wide access to true friends and a much more restricted access to "acquaintances", but it does require a sophisticated and disciplined approach to the management of a social-networking site to achieve this.


So should Schools get involved in this issue? If so, how?

There is nothing inherently wrong, immoral or unprofessional about teachers communicating with pupils through social networking sites, thus it is inappropriate for schools to attempt to restrict the use of these sites. There is also a pragmatic argument that, since it impossible for Schools to police how their staff interact with pupils in cyberspace, they should not get involved in this area.

However, I do believe that Schools do have a responsibility to protect the pupils and staff in its care, but this should not be done through Draconian and unenforceable policies. Rather they have an important educational role to play. Schools must ensure that both pupils and staff have the knowledge and skills to protect their privacy and to remain safe when on social networking sites. Thus both teachers and pupils will be able to maintain appropriate professional relationships and distance whether online or in the classroom.

For more on staying safe on a social networking site, see the

• Facebook Safety pages
• Tips on Protecting your Personal Information on Facebook
  

Internet Safety - Tips for Parents

Protecting our children goes with the territory of being a parent. From a young age we warn and train them about the dangers of the fireplace, crossing the road and encountering strangers. When it comes to the internet these principles still apply, but sometimes we feel that we are not qualified to do so. John Palfrey and Urs Gasser in their book Born Digital offer some sound advice:

Parents and teachers need to start by putting in the time it takes to understand how the digital environment work so that they can be credible guides to young people. ...

The home is a good place for parents to begin. They must get smarter about what their kids are doing online, which need not be something that their kids do by themselves in an isolated part of the home. p.100

It is perhaps too easy for us to install a "net nanny" program on our home PC and assume that that we have fulfilled our parenting responsibilities. It is important that we share the experiences of our children. Just as with crossing the road, we cannot be there all the time, but it is worthwhile spending sometime going through the basics together with them.

Whereas we may have some control over the other people our children encounter in "real space", we cannot regulate whom our children meet in digital space. However, we can help them to make better decisions about their own safety when online. A study from the US and New Zealand confirms this:

The more often "significant adults" talk to young people about their experiences online (and occasionally monitor what they are doing), the less likely the youth are to engage in risky behaviour (defined as disclosing personal information, meeting up offline with someone they met online, or sharing photos with strangers). The young people who did not have the adult intervention were four times more likely to agree to meet up with someone they met online. [Study by Berson and Berson 'Challenging Online Behaviors of Youth']

For more on internet safety: see Microsoft's staysafe.org which outlines "10 things you can teach kids to improve their Web safety" and also has some excellent age-related tips:

• Up to age 10
• 11-14 years old
• 15-18 years old

The EU Insafe Website also has some useful information on a range of Internet Safety issues.