Google talks to Mahomet-Seymour Junior High students about internet safety
Roadshow is a term many junior high students have never heard of.
DM (which stands for direct message) is an acronym that many adults have to turn to a search engine to understand.
But when multiple generations turn to the internet, there is one common understanding: there are dangers out there.
Google brought its roadshow: “How to be internet awesome” to Mahomet-Seymour Junior High on Friday. The group, which travels to junior high schools all over the country, seeks to provide an interactive hour with young teens so that they can understand how to navigate a place full of wonder and hidden dangers.
“Obviously there are a lot of great resources online, but (we want to) really bring it to life here in person so that students understand how to be smart, how to be safe and (give them) core tips about the online world and (how to) realize what platform they are on and learn the rules of the road,” Google employee Jamie Hill said.
Google presenters went over five internet safety points with students. They talked about how to share appropriate content, to be aware of people who may take advantage of them, to set passwords that are less likely to be hacked, to spread kindness on any platform and how to reach out to adults when an issue arises.
Students were provided with hand-held signs at their seats. As the presenters asked questions about online life, students were able to provide feedback in an appropriate manner.
“As a middle schooler, the things that were discussed in the presentation were things that everyone had a bit of background on,” Brogan Hennesy, a seventh-grade student at Mahomet-Seymour Junior High School, said. “However, the presentation gave us in the audience a more ‘in-depth’ talk.”
The Google presenters placed a photo under the seat of one random student in the audience. When she found the photo and held it up, the presenters asked other students to look under their seats. In order to illustrate how quickly content can spread, dozens of teens were standing in the bleachers holding up the photo.
To drive the point home, Google talked about the importance of being kind in a world where you can hide behind a device.
“We want to make sure that they know it’s up to us to keep the online community great,” Hill said. “They should think about treating others the way they want to be treated, not in their offline life, but to not share something that they wouldn’t feel good about if someone shared that about them.”
They also illustrated how important security is when you have a device with you at all times.
A Best Buy customer logged into her Facebook profile while visiting the store. The employees sent her a gentle reminder on her profile page about logging out of devices while in public places.
While that situation turned out okay, Google talked to students about how to set a secure password and why it’s important to keep that password out of the hands of friends.
“We hear a lot at this age, they share the password a lot with their best friend, and their best friend today might not be their best friend tomorrow,” Hill said. “So we encourage them to set those strong passwords, make them different for every site, but then also don’t share them with someone other than a parent or a trusted adult.”
Google also went over what a misleading URL or a fake website might look like.
Maddie Grindley, a seventh-grade student at Mahomet-Seymour Junior High, said the presentation really opened her eyes to what can happen to anyone online.
“Before this presentation, I didn’t really take safety on the internet very seriously,” Grindley said. “Sure, I knew the basics, but I always thought that none of these bad things could happen to me just by posting something or talking to someone on the internet. Now that we had this presentation, it opened my eyes a little more to the things that can actually happen, and that the internet isn’t as safe as I thought it was.”
Both Hennesy and Grindley think that Mahomet-Seymour Junior High School could talk about internet safety with the students more often.
“I feel that during extended learning time (ELT), we could have a talk about Chromebook safety, and what you should and shouldn’t do on the Chromebook,” Hennesy said.
Grindley agrees.
“I feel like lots of the kids at my school don’t take it seriously because they think that it would never happen to them or that the internet is completely safe, when it’s not,” she said. “I think the school could talk about internet safety more often because I feel like the schools don’t talk about it as much as they should.”
Mahomet-Seymour Junior High School Principal Nathan Mills said that the district has provided students with the protection of GoGuardian and Securly, cloud-based internet filtering systems that the district utilizes when Chromebooks are both on and off campus.
While Mills said that the school has not done anything specific to talk to the students about internet safety, he hopes that the presentation will spark some conversations between staff and/or students.
“We’re having conversations about what’s appropriate, but that’s ever-changing as far as what programs are out there (and) how kids can access them,” Mills said. “So to me it’s never going to stop. It’s something we have to do the best we can to continue to educate our kids on what’s appropriate use and what’s not appropriate use.”
Hennesy said he would have liked to see Google or adults talk more about why it’s important to keep personal photos and videos away from texting and social media.
“It would have been nice if the presentation talked more about how things on the internet will never go away, and that stuff can come back to haunt you when you are looking for a job,” he said.
Hennesy and Grindley also believe that students can help adults understand some of the terms or situations children are put into growing up in a generation of technology.
“Kids could help adults understand internet safety in a better way by teaching them how new apps work,” Grindley said. “Also, how their kids could be hiding certain things from them within these apps. Children could also let adults know what certain slang words mean, so the adults can better understand terms that they may come across on the internet.”
Hennesy said there are also serious situations kids need help with.
“Kids receive nude photos commonly, whether they want to or not,” he said. “We should discuss what kids think everyone should do in a situation like that.”
Congressman John Shimkus, who is on the telecommunications sub-committee which helped bring the Google team to Mahomet-Seymour, said students need to understand how to be safe while on the internet.
“It’s a great place to get information, share thoughts and feelings, but it’s a very dangerous place, too,” he said.
“People need to be cautious. I taught high school; the sooner you can get people to think positively and cautiously about the environment they are in, we will help someone (from) falling into something we will all regret.”
Shimkus said it is difficult to put legislative measures for internet use in place because the internet is a global platform. But his telecommunication committee works to find solutions so that students throughout the United States can have high-speed internet access.
“We still have kids that have to go to McDonald’s to get high-speed internet access when their school is saying do this homework on this platform,” he said. “That’s where we are trying to be engaged.”
Google provides additional resources on its roadshow for students, parents and educators at
