Scratch web site and online safety
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Peter Ross
Member
February 08, 2012
Hi.
There are teachers at my school who are nervous about the idea of kids contacting "strangers" on the Scratch web site for collaboration on say, the Collab Camp. And visa versa. Does the MIT Scratch team address the idea of online saftey for kids using their site? I couldn't find any rules, guidlines, etc. anywhere.
Thanks.
Peter R.
Hi, Peter,
Whenever I take my students into an online community, safety is very much on my mind. With Scratch, this is how I aproached it. If the students have a personal email, I encouraged them to get their own Scratch account (with their parents'/guardians' permission), but for those who do not yet have their own email, I am uploading their projects for them through my account. (Some of my 8th grade students do have their own accounts, but most of the younger students do not.) The students are saving their work to the school network. From there, I display projects on the SMARTboard for group discussion and as a class we share(upload) them online through my computer. We also have downloaded some projects from the website to the school network through my account and the students are beginning to learn about remixing.
When posting information to be shared publicly, I cautioned the students to be mindful of revealing personal information. This was a particular concern when creating the All About Me projects-some students revised their original projects to create a "safer" version for online sharing.
Hi Peter,
I'm a member of the Scratch Team and I also lead the Collab Camp project. Safety is definitely a priority on the website, and as you saw in our community guidelines, we discourage Scratchers from sharing contact information such as numbers or addresses. If you ever see instances of this happening on the site, please flag it or contact us. We have a moderation team that responds to these reports by removing such information from the website and notifying the Scratch members involved that they are breaking website guidelines.
Regarding events like Collab Camp, where we invite members to connect and collaborate, our organizing team closely observes interactions among members during this activity. We encourage them to collaborate on the Scratch website, where interactions are publicly visible to all members. We also encourage members to find collaborators within their local network of classmates, friends, or family.
Let us know if you have any more questions!
Ricarose
Thanks for your reply!
Opps. I just found the "Community Guidlines" link at the bottom of the site's home page.