Chat Roulette: A Gamble We Can Live Without!

When I first started giving Internet workshops in 1995, there were a few
sites that I used to give people a snapshot of what the web was all about.

The most popular of these sites was called WebRoulette. You would click a button and be taken to a random web site.

But this post is not about WebRoulette. These sites still exist though WebRoulette has long since been bought by a casino site. Random web site generators still exist, but be careful. Some harbor spyware, but this post is not about spyware. It's about the 21st century version iteration of this phenomenon, Random Video Chats.

You read that right. If you go to chatroulette.com and click the start button, your web camera will start up in one window and you will be face to face with a random stranger in another.

I first heard about it in a Facebook post from Kerstein Creative that said, "The most unusual, intriguing, weird, frightening concept in social networking I've read about yet. (Can't say I've seen it, because I'm a little freaked out by it.)" and pointed to this article in the New York Magazine. http://nymag.com/news/media/63663/

After reading the article, I had to check it our for myself. The results were very much as described in the article. Here's a snapshot of what I saw. It really reflects the part of my block description that says "with great latitude given in the definition of human."

In a four minute period I saw 66 males and 7 females mostly in the teens and 20's. There were 22 connections that had their cameras blacked out and 6 "others". Others were cameras pointing at signs, walls, or other object.

The disturbing part was that of the 66 males, 6 were X-rated. There was one set of breasts displayed and unquestionably the most bizarre connection was this one.

Do I even have to say it? A web camera in the hands of an unsupervised teen, is an invitation to trouble. I understand that they might use it to talk to grandma or aunt Tillie, but do you want them talking to this guy? If your child has a web camera, at the very least, have a long talk with them!

Can I Get a Dr. Here?

Ok, it's time for some no BS talk. I'll begin by making it clear

that the opinion about the state or educational technology and

Internet safety education are my opinions and not necessarily those

of WiredSafety.

Thirty-eight years ago I was a new teacher sitting in classroom with fifteen other new teachers. The then Superintendent of Rockaway Schools, Bob Linette, was conducting the class and asked us one by one what we thought of the American educational system. One by one each person sung the praises of our system. I was the last to reply and when he asked me, I said it stunk. The silence and looks on the faces of the other fourteen people said volumes.

Without pausing, he asked me to explain. I asked him and the group what part of their day was the math part, what part was the science part, what part was the social studies part? I said we were supposed to be teaching kids about life and how to success. I failed to see how this achieved that goal. I felt that school should be more like life, that kids should be solving real world problem and doing real world work. When I was done, he just said, "You're absolutely right."

Those three words set the course of my career and from that day on, I never looked back. Ever since then I've been trying to get schools to change the way they deliver instruction. It's thirty-eight years later and things have changed very little. Yes, technology is now in the picture, but technology implementation without changing how we deliver instruction is not going to work. In many ways technology has worsened the situation. There was already disconnect between curriculum and the skills that the 20th and 21st century required. With kids knowing more about technology than the teachers, the gap became a chasm.

As a result, the state of educational technology infusion in this country is a shambles. I'm not talking about the cables, routers, and computers. They are nothing to brag about, but compared to the hardware, the effective implementation of technology is in such a state that if it was in an episode of M.A.S.H., it would be on a gurney, with Hawkey and BJ doing everything they can do to keep it alive as it was heading for the operating room.

Lack of visionary leadership, lack of technical support, lack of professional development, budget constraints, NCLB, pressure to perform on high stakes tests that measure all the wrong things, and other mandates that hamstring teachers, make them little more than paper shufflers and test tutors. Yes, there are pockets of excellence. There are exemplary schools and programs, and there success stories, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

I've spent the last ten years of my life trying to make a difference in this arena. Now I've retired from that life and have perhaps jumped from the frying pan into the fire. I'm attempting to develop Internet safety instruction that schools can use.

If you believe what I say about the state of educational technology in this country, then it isn't a stretch to realize that the state of Internet safety education is in worse shape. If teachers don't have the time or expertise to implement effective use of technology in the core curriculum, expecting them to implement Internet Safety instruction is total folly. It's like strapping a couch to the back of a sprinter and asking him to run a marathon.

I'm not sure if it's because I'm an optimistic masochist or because I graduated from Rube Goldberg High School and McGuyver High School, but I liked the challenge. Two years ago I started a program that I felt dealt with both problems at the same time. I coined the phrase

and began my program of CyberSafety through Information Literacy. It was a series of lessons that could serve both as professional development for teachers and Internet safety instruction for students. The lessons are aligned to the National EducationTechnology Standards and other core curriculum standards. Instead of being add-on curriculum, it could be integrated into the existing curriculum in a number of ways.

Inexperienced teachers could run the Flash based lessons and let me provide the instruction. Because the software allows teachers to control all phases of the presentation, including sound and sequence, as inexperienced teacher became more comfortable with the material,

they could make it their own by substituting their narrative for my audio tack and by selecting what to present and when to present it.

Now I think it's time to take the next logical step. We at WiredSafety have found that two of the most effective tools for getting teens to listen to our message is to have it delivered by other teens and to have the message wrapped around real stories about real people and real events. Our Teenangels have stories of their own that they relate. You can find out more about them by visiting Teenangels.org.

We at WiredSafety have stories activities and suggestions that we relate to parents, teachers, and teens in our presentations. Some of those stories are already contained in my CyberSafety through Information Literacy lessons. Over the coming weeks and months, I'm going to begin extracting those stories, add new ones, offer short suggested actions and activities, and create a library of 5-10 minute learning objects that teachers and parents can use whenever they have

time or whenever they see a teachable moment.

I'll blog about them here and post them on the WiredSafety site. As they begin appearing, I welcome your comments, questions, and suggestions.

Maybe together we can help Hawkeye and BJ get a patient off the critical list.

Education and Legislation

New York has just proposed the Electronic Security and Targeting of Online Predators Act (e-STOP) to keep people safe online. In the words of Andrew Cuomo, "Today I believe we're proposing the most comprehensive, smartest, toughest law in the nation to keep people safe online, especially minors."

That it is the toughest and most comprehensive, there is little doubt. It may well be the smartest as well. Only a closer look and time will tell.

The bill would require convicted sex offenders to register their e-mail addresses, instant message screen names, and any other online identifiers and make it a felony to not report changes in Internet activity within 10 day. It would allow judges and the state's Parole Board to restrict the online activities of sex offenders and would ban many sex offenders from using social-networking sites.

That all sounds sensible, but reporting your logins and then setting up a second set is something teens do routinely to get around the "legislation" that their parents create. Why would we expect criminals to do any less. Yes, the penalties for a predator getting caught are now considerably greater, but that does little to help someone who has been victimized by an offender who is trying to get around the law and has no intention of getting caught.

It must also be noted that this law has no effect on sexual predator outside of New York who contact teens in New York, though at least 13 other states have legislation proposed to limit Internet activities of sex offenders.

When it comes to Internet safety, my mantra has long been education not legislation, but I've modified that somewhat. I've come to recognize the need for smart legislation and my mantra is now education and legislation. Legislation is often poorly crafted and reactionary. Even the best crafted laws can provide a false sense of security. If e-STOP is to be touted as the smartest law, the legislators need to publicly acknowledge its limitations, counsel increased vigilance by parents, and provide funds for the training of the public and teachers in the development of safe, responsible netizens.

Swim Team on Porn Site

Photos of members of an Orange County, CA water polo team have found their way to some gay porn sites, much to the alarm of students, parents, and school officials. A quick Google search will yield dozen of hits to give the details.

The article on the KNBC web site indicates that "police confirmed they are investigating whether a dispatcher, Scott Cornelius, photographed high school players for gay-oriented sites. Cornelius was granted a photo credential to the 2007 Junior World Water Polo Championships at Los Alamitos last summer"

Based on that snippet alone, you can be sure we will be hearing more about this. While those pictures may turn out to be attributed to the dispatcher is irrelevant. Once ANY picture is posted to ANY web site, for all intents and purposes the poster risks losing control of the picture. Anyone can grab it and do with it as they wish. As illustrated by my Ditherhead story and accented by this story, any picture can take on a life of its own with unpredictable results.

The simple fact is that nothing will prevent predators, creeps, and perverts from doing what they do. This sort of tragedy is bound to happen regardless of what we do, but parents and children need to be wary of what they post so as to not become unwitting accomplices to the twisted minds that do this sort of thing.

How we go about accomplishing this is not a simple matter. If I had a magic wand, every school would have a course on cybercivics where students would learn safe, responsible netizenship. But I'm not Harry Potter and even if I could magically conjure up the courses, we would still need knowledgeable teachers who are capable of understanding the online world of the teens. There are precious few of them right now and until today's teens become tomorrow's teachers, the numbers will be woefully insufficient to meet the challenge.

One thing we can do is to get kids talking to kids. That's what WiredSafety's Teenangels are doing. I'll talk more about them in the future. Until then, talk to your kids about incidents like this and have them take a look at my lesson titles Put Your Best Foot Forward.