Education Connection Provides Cyber Safety Presentation

By Eliza Hallabeck

Senior Assistant State Attorney for the Stamford/Norwalk Judicial District Richard J. Colangelo stood before Newtown Public Schools staff, parents, and students on Monday, May 24, to share cyber safety tips and more.

The presentation was offered by Education Connection. According to a release for the presentation, it provided audience members with tools and strategies for addressing children’s use of popular social networking sites, like Facebook, Twitter, and MySpace. Topics during the presentation covered cyberbullying, online predators, “sexting,” and children having constant access to cellphones.

One slide during Mr Colangelo’s presentation said 19 percent of teens report being harassed or bullied online, and 44 percent of those teens report being harassed by their peers. Cyberbullying, he said, can happen through emails, messaging, and through web postings.

 According to the release for the presentation, Mr Colangelo has specialized in cases of child exploitation, both severe physical and sexual abuse, and child sexual exploitation cases involving the Internet throughout his career. He has taught in the Criminal Justice program at Norwalk Community College since 1995.

Cyberbullying, as he told the audience in the Newtown Middle School auditorium on Monday night, is easier for students to do than face-to-face bullying, because the bully does not have to see the consequences of his or her actions.

Mr Colangelo advised parents to set their own rules for Internet usage, and those rules can be different for each member of the household. Rules, he said, can include who teens talk to on the Internet, how long they spend online, and the sites they visit.

If parents opt to use computer monitoring software, he reminded the audience that computer-savvy teens can spend roughly half-an-hour learning how to work beyond those programs.

Mr Colangelo also advised keeping a centrally located computer station in the house, but warned the audience members using a wireless connection to keep that connection password protected. An individual IP address, he said, can be used to track predators to their homes, and if they were using an open Internet connection, it would track to that person’s home.

Asking teens for help with technology is also advised, because, he said, there is nothing more satisfying as a teen than being asked to help.

“Really, you want them to talk to you,” he said.

Let teens know the rules that apply in their home also apply in other areas of their life where they might be accessing the Internet, he said.

In the event the unthinkable happens, and a parent learns of a predator, cyberbullying, or other harmful situation, Mr Colangelo advised not blowing up, but being supportive and reporting the situation to the proper authorities.

He also advised parents not to take their anger out on their child’s computer. In one case, he said, a mother took out her feelings on her daughter’s computer after learning the daughter had been caught with an older man. Luckily, Mr Colangelo said, the man’s computer was seized by the authorities, but, had that not been the case, the information connecting the crime to the man would have been gone.

In closing, Mr Colangelo shared Shel Silverstein’s poem “The Voice” with audience members.

“As a parent,” he said, “what do we want to do? We want to give their voice as much volume as possible, so when they are not around us, it is still strong.”

More information on Education Connection is available at www.educationconnection.org.