I was born in the 1980s and spent my childhood and teen years in the 1990s and early 2000s. When I was in a small town elementary school, the school had only a few computers for kindergarten through grade 6 students(think 100 kids). We did not discuss cyber safety during that time since no one had the Internet. The school’s computers were not connected to the Internet, so the students used them to type our stories and not die on the Oregon Trail.

I remember my parents purchased our first computer in 1995, which was a huge deal.  We had Microsoft Windows 95, which was connected to dial-up internet.

 

Above is the nostalgic sound of turning on your computer in 1995.  This is followed by the patience creating dial-up tone from connecting to the internet, hoping no one would call or pick up the phone to ruin the connection.

 

Once I was in high school, we had a room designated for computers.  There was enough for each student; my class had 11-13 students, depending on the year. We were told not to go on any “bad” websites, or we would not be able to use the computers.  We feared losing our computer privileges if we did something wrong on the computers.  This approach taught us to lie and conveniently not tell the teachers if something went wrong or if a virus was downloaded onto the computer.  We weren’t stupid as students, so we avoided authority and deceived the teachers if something happened so we wouldn’t lose our privileges. Creating a scare tactic is not a great way to deal with teens because when you tell a teen they can’t do something, they find an alternate solution to work around it.

The computer safety I did receive was from my mom.  She told me not to give out information that could pinpoint someone to where I live.  I remember talking with people worldwide in Yahoo chatrooms, asking a/s/l (age/sex/location). Then, if you liked chatting with a particular person, you would give them your

 

green, red and yellow flower, icq username to add them to a private messaging space.  In later years, we moved to MSN messenger to chat with new and old friends.

As future educators, we need to communicate openly with students without fear so that they know they can tell us when they make a mistake. Students need to know adults are here to help and not to allow someone to harass or bully them online.