BnetS@vvy’s goal is to provide useful Internet safety resources to
parents and educators, but more importantly we love to hear from tweens
directly. See what two middle school girls from Washington, D.C. and
New York City have to say about Sharon Cindrich’s, A Smart Girl’s Guide to the Internet.
Amori, age 11A Smart Girl’s Guide to the Internet [by
Sharon Cindrich] is a fact filled book that educates young girls about
good and bad things that can happen to you or your computer. In the
next few paragraphs I will share with you my experience reading the
enthralling and lovely guide to the Internet. I
learned about acronyms like P.O.S. (Parent Over Shoulder), it stands
for a protective parent. Generally parents are very protective of their
children when their child is on the Internet. Every parent is a unique
individual and has their own way of taking care of their child. Some
parents use security software. Security software also protects your
computer from viruses so your files aren’t destroyed. When this happens
you have a fritz. Some parents may put filters on their computers to
keep out horrible language and websites with bad reputations. Sometimes
parents will monitor their computer so that they can see copies of
their child’s e-mails and websites they’ve been to. Not
only are there bullies at your school, but they are also on the
Internet. The bullies on the Internet are called cyberbullies.
Cyberbullies can pretend to know you, threaten you or trick you.
Whenever you receive an e-mail from someone you don’t know you
shouldn’t respond. You should save the e-mail so that you can show an
adult and see what they have to say about the message. The
computer is an excellent way to work on your homework, projects and
book reports. With the computer you can research and discover
thought-provoking and amazing facts online to help you with your work.
I enjoyed A Smart Girl’s Guide to the Internet because it
contains opinions and stories that happened in real life to young
girls, just like me. It has taught me things I didn’t know about the
Internet and corrected me on some things I was wrong about. I would
recommend it because it keeps the reader interested to read more. Eleanor, 14Reading A Smart Girl’s Guide to the Internet
was a lot of fun. It wasn’t too hard or too difficult to read. The
writing was very clear and simple so younger age groups would be able
to read the book easily. It was also really realistic. The facts and
life examples were pretty up to date. For example, my mom still puts
money on my lunch account when it gets low. That’s not something that
would have happened a decade ago. When
the book introduced cyberbullying it was really helpful to see probable
reasons to why someone would be bullied and examples of how
cyberbullying can be expressed in different ways. It shows how to
properly handle a situation when things go wrong on the Internet and
how to solve the problem without regretting your decision. They even
had the definition of tattling; to try to make someone look bad, and
how it was different from trying to get help. I bet many girls have
been caught in the middle of a bad situation and they wanted to help
their friend, but they thought that they were tattling and just being a
bully so they would hold back. Knowing that tattling is different than
actually helping can make a girl feel more confident. Even
though I already knew most of the information in the guide, there were
still a couple of things that I didn’t know like what was safe and what
was a no-no on downloading and sharing music. A Smart Girl’s Guide to the Internet is a really good choice to help a girl be safe and smart online.
Categories