<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Welcome to Technology!!</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The months of January and February Ms. Beshore and myself are working with the students on the concepts of bullying/cyberbullying and cybersafety.  We are doing four lessons with each class:</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">1-)  <strong>What is bullying?  </strong>Bullying is an<strong> intentional</strong> act that is <strong>hurtful</strong> and<strong> repeated</strong> committed by<strong> someone who feels they are stronger than someone</strong> else.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">2-)  <strong>What can we do to combat bullying?  </strong>We learn about being a bystander (a student who stands by while the bullying occurs) and being an upstander (standing up for ourselves and friends in the face of bullying).  Students acknowledge that it takes courage to be an upstander, but they are all willing and able!</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">3-)  <strong>What is Cyberbullying and how do we combat it?  </strong>We encourage the student to get off the computer, take a screen shot and TELL AN ADULT!!</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">4-)  <strong>How do we keep ourselves safe online?</strong>  We learn about the adventures of Faux Pas the Internet Cat and his misadventures.  Along this same line, we would like to share with you some of the latest Aps (Applications) that are gaining popularity with the students and the pros and cons of each:</p>
1. <strong>Snap Chat</strong>

<strong>Why Your Teen Loves It</strong>
Snapchat allows users to send images and videos to their friend lists. The secret sauce is that the sender can place a time limit on how long the receiver reviews the image or video. The content or “Snaps” self-destruct from 1-10 seconds based upon the time limit set by the users. After the snap self-destructs it is also deleted from the Snapchat Servers. Teens love snapchat because of it’s simplicity and speed. It sends photos and videos much faster than standard text messages. Teens sends millions of snaps throughout the day of funny facial expressions or pictures of their pets.

<strong>Why You Should Monitor It</strong>
Snapchat is the number one <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/03/tech/mobile/snapchat/index.html">sexting app </a>on the market. Teens send nude snaps to their significant others under the impression that snaps self-destruct. <a href="http://mashable.com/2013/08/07/forensic-snapchat-facebook-poke/">Forensic Experts </a>have stated the snaps can easily be recovered thus they are never truly deleted from the receiver’s phone. Due to the countless number of nude snaps, porn sites have popped up over the internet to take advantage of the free content. There have also been numerous cases of bullying with the app.

2. <strong>Kik Messenger</strong>

<strong>Why Your Teen Loves It</strong>

Super quick instant messaging app with over 100 million users that allow teens to exchange videos, pics, and sketches. New Kik cards allow user send Youtube videos, create memes, and gifs without leaving the app. Kik Cards reached over 2 million users within first week of their launch.

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<strong>Why You Should Monitor It</strong>

Teens are using the Kik app for sexting and dating. Teens are sending nude selfies to one another through the app. The term sex buddy is being replaced with <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Kik%20Buddy">Kik Buddy</a>. Teens used Reddit and other forum sites to place classified ads for sex by giving out their Kik usernames. Kik does not offer any parental controls. Additionally, there is no way of authenticating users thus making it easy for pedophiles to use the messenger app.

3. <strong>The Whisper App</strong>

<strong>Why Your Teen Loves It</strong>

Whisper is the Teen Confession App. It allows users to superimpose text over a picture. The secret sauce is that users are anonymous thus allowing for secrets to be posted. Over 70% of whisper users are women under the age of 25. Whisper provides freedom for young users to share raw feelings and emotions over simple pictures.

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<strong>Why You Should Monitor It</strong>

Teens have started using the app for cyberbullying. Due to the anonymous feature of the app, teens are posting pics of other teens with derogatory text superimposed on the image. Users do not have to register to use Whisper thus no user profile. Unfortunately, the app allow users to communicate with other users nearby by using the device GPS location settings. Pedophiles seek out female whisper users to establish a relationship. Recently, a Seattle, Washington man was <a href="http://q13fox.com/2013/10/10/man-charged-after-using-whisper-app-to-lure-teenage-girl/#axzz2nwWH5vzI">arrested</a> for raping a 12 year old girl that was lured to a hotel through the app.

4. <strong>Ask.fm App</strong>

<strong>Why Your Teen Loves It</strong>

Ask.fm is one of the hottest social networking sites that is almost exclusively used by teenagers and pre-teens. 25% of teens have posted something on ask.fm over the past 30 days. It is a question and answers site that allows user to ask anonymous questions. Ask.Fm has Twitter and Facebook integration that allows users to connect with all their friends on those popular sites.

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<strong>Why You Should Monitor It</strong>
Due to intense bullying, Ask.fm has led to 4 <a href="http://www.dailydot.com/society/askfm-suicide-laney-gallagher-pugsley-bullying/">documented</a> cases of suicide in the United States, Ireland, and Great Britain. User engage in hyper bullying by constantly asking inappropriate and derogatory questions. The app is totally anonymous and is not being monitored by the developers.

The key for parents is to monitor downloaded apps on their child’s phone. Google the apps to learn if they are dangerous or inappropriate. Gather all of your child’s passwords and user names for monitoring purposes. If your teen refuses to give you his or her passwords, then download spyware such as <a href="http://www.mspy.com/">Mspy</a> to review your teen’s cell phone activity. It is always better to be safe than sorry.
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<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://delasallefm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Placemats-for-uploead.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-2524" alt="Placemats for uploead" src="http://delasallefm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Placemats-for-uploead-300x225.jpg" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">We have been so busy!!  The DeLaSalle Academy Chorale is taking a field trip to Blessed Pope John XXIII Villas on Friday, November 8.  In our Technology class we have been mastering the Page Layout and Insert Tabs in Microsoft Word.  The students used these new and emerging skills to create beautiful Thanksgiving Placemats for the Chorale to take to the residetns when they visit.  A great job was done by all students!!!</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://delasallefm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Build-1.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-2219" alt="Build 1" src="http://delasallefm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Build-1-300x225.jpg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <a href="http://delasallefm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Parts.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-2220" alt="Parts" src="http://delasallefm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Parts-300x225.jpg" width="300" height="225" /></a> <a href="http://delasallefm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/You-Tube.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-2221" alt="You Tube" src="http://delasallefm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/You-Tube-300x225.jpg" width="300" height="225" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">This session is a very exciting one!  We are studying Computer Hardware.  At the onset of class, students are presented with a YouTube Video (NewEgg TV How to Build a Computer Part 1) that outlines the most basic computer hardware requirements (Case, Power Supply, Mother Board, CPU, Video Card, Storage,  Memory and Optical Drive), we complete a few basic worksheets covering Input and Output Devices, the difference between Hardware and Software and then cover the function for each of the required parts.  Last but not least, the classes are split up into two groups each charged with the repsonsibility of building a desktop computer.  At the very end, we connect the newly built machine to a monitor and see how we did.  The lesson is proving to be challenging and a lot of fun!</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>Technology Lesson 2</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><a href="http://delasallefm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/avatars11.png"><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1975" alt="avatars1" src="http://delasallefm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/avatars11-300x144.png" width="300" height="144" /></a> <img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-1976" alt="avatars2" src="http://delasallefm.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/avatars21-300x142.jpg" width="300" height="142" /></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: center;">As you can see, the students have been very busy creating facial Avatars.  The site we are using is a called PickaFace.net.  It is completely free and does not require any personal information.  During class, the students spend a little bit of time exploring the site and all of it's options and then they created themselves.  For the second part of class, each student choose the name of a classmate and created that person.  The pictures were then displayed on our SmartBoard and everyone was asked to guess who the face represented.  The students and I are having a great time with this unit.  It is teaching us to search through sites to find all of the options available, while at the same time, allowing the students to find unique and interesting characteristics about themselves and their classmates.  One caveat that we are discussing in class is that many avatar sites require users to enter personal information, this is NEVER a safe thing to do.  If the students/parents have questions about a site, please feel free to send me an email and we can look into it (<a href="mailto:jbarras@DeLaSalleFM.org">jbarras@DeLaSalleFM.org</a>).</p>
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