It’s more important than ever to teach empathy from the very beginning, because our kids are going to need it. —Melinda Gates Nearly every expert I spoke with while writing “Raising Humans in a Digital World: Helping Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology,” told me that if they could equip kids with one digital superpower, it would be empathy. [Download Empathy-Building Activities Below] Empathy is the ability to put oneself in another’s shoes. It encompasses persp

We're busy updating the Cyber Civics curriculum, expanding our team, and getting ready for an awesome Fall. See where we'll be: 8/5 | Santa Rosa Academy, Menifee, CA 8/12 | St. Eudes School, Chatsworth, CA 8/29 | NY Jets Tackle Cyberbullying Symposium, MetLife Stadium, NJ 9/6 | United Way of Central West Virginia, WV 9/17 | Heilecher Jewish Day School, Minneapolis, MN 9/24 | Novato Charter School, Novato, CA 9/25 | Marin Waldorf School, Marin, CA 10/1 | Infinity Kids Pedi

As evidenced by increases in app downloads, app earnings, and smartphone penetration over the last five years, mobile application usage seems to be on the rise. The smartphone has managed to take up even more of our time. However, usage does not distribute evenly across types of mobile apps. Five social media apps in particular, have gained disproportionate shares of overall app use. The makers of these apps, of course, want people to use and spend time using them, and consu

California Governor Jerry Brown recently signed a bill that will help California students get the training they need to discern legitimate sources of information. The new bill requires the state Department of Education to provide schools with a list of resources and instructional materials on media literacy. Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Mexico, and Washington state have already passed similar legislation, and several other states are considering it. This should go a long wa

Don’t tweet stupid stuff. Seems like no-brainer advice, doesn’t it? Yet, if one's brain is not fully-functional (we’ll get to that in a minute), following this simple guideline is harder than it seems. Case(s) in point… In the past few weeks, the offensive tweets of three Major League Baseball players came back to bite each of them in very public and embarrassing ways. In each case, the racist and homophobic tweets now causing their P.R. nightmares were posted when each athle

Check out this seventh grade class as they tell NBC what they've been learning in their Cyber Civics classes! An entire generation of kids is growing up with social media, and it’s affecting them in more ways that most think. NBC's Jacob Soboroff speaks with students at Journey School in Aliso Viejo, CA, who are studying the effects of their smartphone use on their daily wellbeing, as well as their privacy, in their Cyber Civics classes--a program now being taught in 38 US st

The average teen spends more time online than they do sleeping (we have a curriculum for that!) ​An entire generation of kids is growing up with social media, and it’s affecting them in more ways that most think. NBC's Jacob Soboroff speaks with students at Journey School in Aliso Viejo, CA, who are studying the effects of their smartphone use on their daily wellbeing, as well as their privacy, in their Cyber Civics classes--a program now being taught in 38 US states, and int

We were visited recently by CBC News recently because they wanted to see how we teach "media literacy" to 8th grade students in a Cyber Civics class. Oh, and without using computers, by the way. For this lesson students used the C.R.A.P. Detection skills learned in a previous lesson (this is an acronym devised by Howard Rheingold of Stanford University, and it provides students with an unforgettable mechanism for evaluating and identifying falsehoods online). Students used th

People are always asking us: So what the heck is Cyber Civics anyway? The best way to understand our middle school digital citizenship and literacy program is by attending a FREE onsite workshop where educators can observe real students at our pilot school engaging in Cyber Civics lessons AND they can experience these hands-on lessons for themselves. Thanks to the generosity of a grant from KidGuard, we are able to invite any interested educator to such a workshop, coming up

This family version of our turnkey middle school digital literacy program meets an urgent need to help youth become ethical, knowledgeable, and empowered digital citizens. It includes four activities, video, full support and resources to teach key online safety lessons to your children at home. Learn more: http://www.cyberwisecert.com/cyber-civics-for-families #cybercivics #onlinesafety #digitalcitizenship #families #digitalliteracy

This first-hand account of the secret digital lives of high school students comes from newest Cyber Civics team member Peter Kelley, who is also a former high school English teacher and current high school coach. There’s an urgent and growing need to equip middle school students with the skills to become ethical, knowledgeable and empowered digital citizens. Every competent mind is able to comprehend this….especially high school students! Having been a high school teacher

Students today use technology as easily as previous generations used a pencil. But technology is much more powerful than a pen or pencil, and amplifies opportunities for both help and harm. Kids know how to use phones and computers—often more adeptly than adults. The issue for many educators is teaching them to use these tools wisely. Many schools address that challenge by implementing “digital citizenship” into their curriculum. How can schools do this? What are the costs, b

So excited to share a wish from these Cyber Civics teachers at Central York Middle School, PA, who not only teach kids how to use technology well, but also how to balance it with REAL life. Thank you for all you do! Our Digital Wish is for ALL students to lead a healthy, balanced digital life in order to be more connected with the people who matter the most! Throughout the Fall, I would see six to ten children playing soccer in a dry water retention area on my drive home fro

It’s nerve-racking when you get a call from a news station saying they are going to do a piece on social media anxiety and they’d like you to comment. News is all about ratings after all, and to get ratings in our media-saturated world sometimes you gotta go with the sensational. So I figured this would be another depressing piece about how our kids are basically all messed up because of their digital devices. But I was pleasantly surprised to watch this well-balanced segment