Cyber+Safety

=Cyber Safety - Keeping Yourself Safe Online=

Cyber safety is no joke! We will be using the resources below to learn ways to keep ourselves safe online.
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Check in with PBS Webonauts Internet Academy to see if you have what it takes to be a Webonaut!
NetSmartz Five is a great way to get small bites of information about keeping yourself safe online. Visit the NetSmartz Five from October!

Powerful Passwords
====Almost every day you hear about hackers getting into personal information and stealing valuable information. This is why everyone needs "Powerful Passwords"! Passwords are our "combination locks" used to protect private information in an online world.==== Here are a few Do's and Don'ts for creating passwords: **Do's**: 1) Give your password to your parent or guardian so they can help you remember it if you forget, 2) Make passwords eight or more characters long so they are harder to crack, 3) Include numbers, letters and symbols as it's harder to guess the combinations, 4) Change your passwords at least every six months, and 5) Create a password you can remember. **Don'ts:** 1) Don't share your password with friends. 2) Don't leave a list of passwords next to your computer. 3) Don't use the same password for every account!

Keeping Information Private
====Second graders are discovering the meaning of private! We all have certain information about ourselves that should not be shared with others we may not know or trust. Students discussed what types of information should be kept private. Our list included: name, age, address, telephone number, e-mail address (or parent's e-mail address), where they go to school (or after school), and where their parents work. Second graders learned some important rules: 1) Ask Before You Tell - students should never fill out forms asking for private information before checking with an adult. 2) How to Use a User Name - user names are sometimes used instead of private information and they learned some rules and tips to use when creating a user name. We visited several websites, such as Eekoworld, The Stacks, and Lego, to find out the kinds of information we are sometimes asked to share. Students also created "Private: Keep Out" posters to remind themselves of the kinds of information to keep private and rules for creating user names.====

Online Safety Rules
====Second graders are learning about going places safely online. This week we learned how to follow the following safety rules: 1) Always go online with an adult. 2) Don't wander off--stick with websites that an adult says are okay. 3) Talk only with people you know. Students took a field trip to the Smithsonian National Zoo to explore the website photographs and webcams. After the field trip students reported what they saw. Go visit the ZOO!====