Students’ Rules for Commenting
Before posting a comment on someone’s blog or creative work, read the comment and ask yourself these questions:
(If you cannot answer each question according to the answer given, change your comment or do not post!)
1) Would I say that to the person face-to-face? Yes
2) Would I say that to the person’s parent? Yes
3) Would I say that to the principal or teacher of this person? Yes
4) Does my comment make sense? Yes
5) Is my comment useful? Yes
6) Is my comment kind? Yes
7) Did I read over the comment and correct spelling and punctuation errors? Yes
Never include your last name or any other personal information about yourself when you leave a comment!
Advice for parents
- Explain that nothing is really private. No matter what kids think. Privacy settings aren’t infallible. It’s up to kids to protect themselves by thinking twice before they post something that could damage their reputation or that someone else could use to embarrass or hurt them.
- Teach kids to keep personal information private. Help kids define what information is important for them to keep private when they're online. We recommend that kids not share their addresses, phone numbers, or birth dates.
- Make sure your kids use privacy settings on their social network pages.Encourage kids to really think about the nature of their relationships (close friends, family, acquaintances, strangers) and adjust their privacy settings accordingly.
- Remind kids to protect their friends' privacy. Passing along a rumor or identifying someone in a picture (called "tagging") affects their privacy. If your kids are tagged in friends’ photos, they can ask to have the photos or the tags removed. But there’s not too much they can do beyond that.
- Establish a few hard-and-fast rules about posting. Set up clear guidelines about what you will and will not allow regarding photographs and activities posted on the internet.
- Remind kids that the Golden Rule applies. What goes around comes around. If kids spread a rumor or talk trash about a teacher, they can't assume that what they post will stay private. Whatever they say can come back to haunt them in more ways than they can imagine.
- Help kids think long term. Everything leaves a digital footprint. Whatever gets created may never go away. If they don’t want tosee it tomorrow, they'd better not post it today.
