DA's Office Presentation on Internet Safety for NMS Students

Plymouth County District Attorney's Office Presentation on "Cyber Sense"

On Monday, November 13, students in all three grades of the Nichols Middle School headed to the auditorium from their DIAL periods for a very special presentation by the Plymouth County's District Attorney's Office on Internet Safety.  

Each year, we try to get DA's Office to come in and make this presentation to our students to help keep them safe online.  It is a very powerful presentation and message.  It is one that we can continuously explain to our students, but when it is not coming from you the parents, teachers, administrators, or the news, it has more weight from the Assistant DA, Ms. Amanda Fowle.

Again, this is a message we all try to tell our children, but from someone on the front line it comes with more power for our students.

Ms. Fowle's premise is very simple, she wants to make sure our students are learning to be safer online and to think before posting anything.  

The title of her presentation was "Cyber Sense."  Assistant DA Fowle tried to make sure our students understood that every time they go online they are creating a digital footprint.  This is certainly not the first time our students have been made aware of this fact.  Ms. Terri Falconer, our Tech Teacher, alerts them of this each and every year.

When ADA Fowle asked our students who has devices, who has more than one, and then who utilizes Social Media almost every hand shot up in all three grades.  Her message, again, was simple that you have watch what you can innocently put out online.  She gave multiple examples and stories that any of our students could have accidently put out to the world (-wide-web).

Ms. Fowle discussed it as putting a virtual neon sign out that you don't mean to do.  And then her clincher is always, "Can you get it back?"  And the simple answer is "No."

ADA Fowle discussed posting pictures and videos.  She talked about the images in terms for our students to understand:  "Who owns them when they're posted? ...  Where are these images? ... Online on Google. ... Forever.  And then they are the 'Property of the Internet.'"

She asked our students to think about their own photos on their phone. "Think about the last photo you took, or the last video you took. Do you want that picture or video out to the world?  Do you want it to be up there 2, 4, 5, 10, 15 years from now?  Think about it.  As soon as you send it to anyone, that could end up on the Internet ... forever."

She gave many powerful example stories of students the same age as our students making mistakes online.

Within these stories, she asked our students if they had engaged in any of these behaviors and multiple times our students put hands up saying, "Yes, they too have done this or have done that or thought this was OK to do."

Her message of Permanence to the web certainly got through to our students through many of her poignant and often sad stories.

Her message was that Social Media can be positive but you have to be careful.  She then led it into Cyberbullying and the consequences of engaging in these negative acts.

Again, this is something our students have certainly heard before, but from the perspective of the courts, it definitely had some weight behind it.

In the end, her final, summative message was one of RESPECT.  Be respectful when online.  Be kind and think before posting always.

And that is the message we wanted our students to hear:  Be Kind. Be Respectful. And know that you always have help and support here for you at NMS.  

We can't thank enough District Attorney Timothy Cruz and his office, especially ADA Fowle for coming and supporting our students learning and keeping them safe.