Information Technology Update – July 30, 2015

Cybersmart Presentation June 2015

One of the interesting issues brought up by presenter Greg Gebhart at the recent Cybersmart presentation held at the College was the role parents can play in the education of our children in being good digital citizens. Research was presented that indicates our children do care what their parents think and that if we set clear guidelines for safe and appropriate cyber behaviour at home our children will respond with more responsible usage. One way we can set these clear guidelines and expectations for our children is to enter into an agreement on what behaviour is considered safe and appropriate. The use of family agreements or safety contracts are highly recommended and allow for the conversation required with our children in discussing those expectations and guidelines that can lead to safe and responsible cyber behaviour. Renowned child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg is a strong believer in the use of family agreements or contracts at home and the clear boundaries they can set for our children. There are examples of family agreements and contracts on the iPad parent support site you may wish to look at and consider for use in your home at: http://ipads.stpats.vic.edu.au/family-agreements-and-resources.html

Scamwatch ACCC Government Website

Another issue to come up at the Cybersmart Presentation was the constant and ongoing problem of scams that are prevalent in the cyber world designed to trick users into giving away valuable personal information. Often these scams are after valuable information such as our credit card or banking details which have led to catastrophic effect with unwitting users having money transferred or stolen. Other scams try to collect your social network details to construct a profile of you and to use these details for other ulterior motives. Facebook is a common target for scammers who aim for a 1% success rate. With Facebook having 1.3 billion users the scammers are hoping to get personal information from 1.3 million users! It is important that we are always highly suspicious of any emails or social networking contact that is unexpected and making unusual requests. Banks and authorised financial institutions will never contact us through email or social networks asking us for our personal information. Unfortunately, being totally sceptical while using and accessing digital resources is often the safest approach to take. A really valuable website for scamming information is the -‘Scamwatch’ website maintained and recently upgraded by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC). This is an excellent resource and contains information on the latest news and alerts of scams and is constantly being updated by the ACCC as new scams come to light. The link to this website is https://www.scamwatch.gov.au/

You may be interested to know that many cyber safety parent resources including those from ACMA have been listed on the College Parent iPad support page at http://ipads.stpats.vic.edu.au/ under the Cyber Safety Resources tab.

Mark Holland

Director of ICT