Paul Davis Cyber Expert Talk 

Last Tuesday, intermediate students at Alexander Ferguson took part in a 45 minutes presentation by Paul Davis, a cyber expert.

His presentation was fact-based. We took time today, Friday, to reflect on our learning to see what we retained from the talk. 

Things we did not realize before:

-any person with average technology skills can find a lot of information about you pretty quickly based on images, time stamps, and especially parents discussing and posting vacation plans and locations.

-many people, including young students, find it disrespectful when people use technology around the dinner table. This is a place for conversation. A suggestion is to post a sign on the fridge to remind family members to leave their phones when at the dinner table.

-Having a discussion and making family 'bylaws' around when to use technology and when to leave it alone are a good idea.

-Many people believe that technology is the way of the future, and learning a new language such as coding is a way to prepare for future job opportunities. We can start with Scratch for a year, and then move on to Python or JavaScript for more challenges. This can make you multilingual.

-Instead of having a social media following, we can make our own blogs with parent support. In the future, when someone searches for something we like to participate in, our blog link will come up first, which could lead to business opportunities.

-It is important to do research about an new app, before downloading it. That way we can tell how it is being used positively and negatively. Parents should always be asked by their child if they can download an app first.


Strategies to stay safe online:

-the best way to avoid bullying online at our age, is to delete all social media platforms.
Most media platforms require people to be 13 years old or more, so at our age we are not legally even supposed to be using social media.

-Parents should respect the wishes of their children if they do not want their images and life moments posted online by their parents

-If we do have a social media account, settings should be set to private, and personal information should never be included in your profile

-If you do have a youtube channel, it is very wise to turn off the comment section, to avoid negativity and hostile comments from strangers. This will avoid a lot of emotional pain because comments are unnecessary and the source of so many problems.

-If you have a webcam, or camera on your laptop, cover it with a bandaid to make sure no one can hack your computer and spy on you

-use strong pass codes, and never share them with anyone else, including siblings

-all electronic devices should stay out of the bedroom, and only be used around family like the living room ((technology plus isolation equals getting hurt with poor choices made)

-never respond to cyberbullying, and outsmart the cyberbully by collecting all of the evidence and reporting it

-digital trails and footprints are permanent

-all choices online are of effort and intent, they are not mistakes but poor choices to hurt others

-pictures never disappear even if they are deleted

-parents need to be aware of what children are doing online

-there are online predators that we need to be aware of by protecting ourselves online

-predators like to find kids on platforms, especially Instagram and TikTok, because they prey on how kids are so trusting

-play online games with real people that you know and communicate to only real people who you personally know

Paul Davis may not be our mom or our dad but he is a proven cyber expert and he wanted to share fact-based information with us. Ultimately, decisions are made at home with your family.