Tech safety seminar for Lynn’s Pickering kids

LYNN – It wasn’t long ago that parents worried more about what their children did when they weren’t at home than what was taking place in their own bedrooms, but the emergence of new technology and a generation of children firmly planted on computer chairs has created a whole new world of danger for teens.With terms like “sexting” and “cyber bullying” dominating the news in recent years, it seems that kids are getting into more trouble on the Internet than on the streets lately and the Lynn Public Schools have noticed.In partnership with the police department and I-Safe Internet Education, the school department held an Internet and technology safety seminar at each of the city’s middle schools Wednesday, hosted by former FBI agent and I-Safe representative Jonathan King.King travels the globe as part of his quest to educate students and parents on the dangers of Internet predators and actions like sexting and recently held a day-long seminar at New Bedford High School for parents and local law enforcement officials.Backed by a multi-point video presentation, King talked to students about how they can get into trouble on the Internet, primarily by giving out information about themselves to people they think are their friends.The stories of young girls and boys meeting up with people they have met on the Internet are frequent in the last decade, but King has found that many children and parents have misconceptions about who is on the other end of chats.The cliché profile of an Internet predator to many is a computer savvy, young, single person looking for sex. But King says that predators are typically a little bit older than parents would expect and usually have families.In addition, King told the students that it is important to know that not all predators are looking for sex, some are looking to commit hate crimes or gain access to bank account or address information for the purposes of stealing or committing forgery.”The goal is for the predators to get their victims to provide as much information as possible,” said King. “They start by talking to you in a chat room, then instant messaging, then to email and eventually to your phone. Once they have your phone, they have your address information.”In addition to adult predators, the seminar focused attention on cyber bullying, another crime that has come to the forefront in recent years, driving some children in other parts of the country to suicide.Cyber bullying consists of students or parents posting rumors or insults about someone on social networking sites like Myspace.com, which can spiral given the way that information is available on the Internet.Another new threat is the trend of “sexting,” or sending nude or suggestive photos via cell phone text messages. Although not a problem yet in Lynn, other local communities have been dealing with the problem of high school and middle school students using the cameras on cell phones for erotic purposes.The actions have created controversy in school departments and in the courts, where debate continues to rage as to whether sexting is a crime, even if it involves two minors.The effort to curb these actions in Lynn is led by School Safety and Security Liaison Officer Robert Ferrari and Director of Health Curriculum Dennis Thompson.Thompson says his passion for this topic began several years ago when he was teaching sixth grade in the city and one of his students had a close encounter with an online predator.”Unfortunately, about five years ago when I was teaching sixth grade we had an incident,” said Thompson. “A girl in one of my classes had been speaking to someone online and had set up a meeting thinking that she was going to meet this nice, young boy that she was getting to know. Luckily, about a week before she went to meet him we had talked about Internet safety in class, so she was able to get away and told her parents, told us and told the police.”Since then Officer Ferrari and I have made it a goal of ours to talk to all