My First Blog

Yes, it's true. This is my very first blog, which I suppose it a bit surprising, considering my gift of gab.

I live in a rural college community, in Western Illinois. For the past five years, I have worked for the local school district, working in both the Junior/High School as well as the elementary schools. My job, basically, is to supervise and oversee the computer labs,provide technical support to students and staff and to create and implement lessons for the 500 students who come thru the lab every week.

For the past two years, I have devoted hundreds of hours researching topics regarding Internet Safety issues. It has become a passion of mine, consuming much of my time and most of my thoughts.

This all came about by accident, really. While I was a part of a keyboarding curriculum committee in 2005, I began looking into Internet Safety issues and concerns since it kind of went hand-in-hand, or, finger-in-finger, with students learning how to keyboard. Our school district had no Internet Safety curriculum per say, I felt it was critically important to instruct these children at a young age, so with the blessing and encouragement from my boss, Ed, I created a four-week curriculum that was highly visual, interactive and down-right fun for all the 2nd and 3rd grade students.

The kids loved their lessons, and I have to tell you, that I felt like I was actually doing something very important in these kids' lives. This school year, I added more topics, expanding their four-week lessons to seven. Over the months, I delved even more into Internet Safety, spending hundreds and hundreds of hours researching the in's and out's, the do's the dont's and the gadgets.
At the beginning of the 2006 school year, I finally felt the "timing" was finally right, and told my Technology Director, Heather, that perhaps the District would see an urgent need for Internet Safety education not only at my particular school, but throughout the District and wanted to pursue this Internet Safety education and awareness that I was so passionate about, further than my own nose. Thanks to alot of help and encouragement from Ed, Heather, from my dearest friend Susie, and from my Superintendant, a new position was created. Not only for my particular school or for my school district, but the entire Region! I was named the Regional Office of Education's Internet Safety Coordinator. I was eccstatic!

First on my to-do list, was to put together a team of local people, to brainstorm and to spread the word regarding Internet Safety concerns. This team, named M.O.S.T.(Macomb Online Safety Team) is comprised of 14 citizens from the Macomb community,of which I Chair. I am so proud of this group of hard-working, caring people. They devote many hours to this endeavor for no pay and little recognition. Our big project right off the bat, was to host an Internet Safety Night for parents and the community, which was held a few weeks ago, and despite a snowy evening and a Junior High basketball game, we had a great turnout. We also had fantastic coverage by the media, infact, quite the media blitz for a small town. I never knew how much went into putting something together like this. For me, it was, I suppose, compounded. Not only was I in a newly created job, the chairperson of a committee, the basic organizer of this event, I also was presenting a school assembly hours prior to the parents night and I myself, was a presenter. Although, in the scheme of things, it was a very small production, I felt like I was the director, producer and host of the Academy Awards!! However, this was a team effort. Everyone worked so very hard as a team, and I for one, am extremely proud of the M.O.S.T. committee!

Since my "big project" is now over, I had to throw myself into another big Internet Safety project. How could I spread the word to as many people as possible regarding Internet Safety issues?? To make a long story short, I am now a regular columnist, for the Macomb Journal!!! I'll be writing two columns per month, on a variety of online safety topics. Some issues that I will discuss, will be no nonsense, "common-sense", others may be alarming, upsetting and I hope, at the very least, thought provoking.

As I continue to tell anyone who listens, one only has to turn on the nightly news or open a newspaper, to see how important Internet Safety is. The internet is rapidly changing, and we as parents, need to stay well-informed. Perhaps, I can help by sharing what I have learned, the mistakes I've made along with way, with you. By writing this blog, I hope to discuss more openly, issues that I may not be afforded to say in a newspaper column. I also hope I can get some feedback here--something that may not happen in a column atmosphere.

http://most.macomb.com

The M.O.S.T. comprehensive Internet Safety education site in Western Illinois