Sgt. Thomas Rich, Internet safety expert, coming to Markham Place in October

The Little Silver PTO is proud to host a workshop on Thursday, October 10 called “Always Connected” featuring Sgt. Thomas Rich in the Markham Place School cafeteria.  Parents of children of all ages are invited to attend.

Sgt. Thomas Rich has been a certified police officer in the State of New Jersey for the past 15 years.  He was recently featured on Good Morning America as an Internet safety expert and has spoken to over 100,000 people in the last 5 years in regards to cyber-bullying. The purpose of "Always Connected" is to inform educators, administration, parents and children of all ages how to utilize technology in a positive way.

The workshop covers cyber-bullying and focuses on how technology fuels the epidemic.

Sgt. Rich will cover the following topics and how they impact our children:

·      Texting

·      Sexting

·      Facebook

·      Ask.fm

·      Formspring.me

·      Cyber-bullying

Sgt. Rich will discuss how these forms of technology are affecting our youth every day as well as how technology makes it easier for kids to be mean to each other.  The presentation will also examine real life examples of cyber-bullying and the dangers of on-line chatting.  He will take an in-depth look at Facebook profiles, explain its pitfalls and review how to protect yourself through privacy settings.

Teaching solutions to all of the issues listed above is the goal of “Always Connected”. The end of the presentation demonstrates how these forms of communication can be used in moderation and positively by our youth.  Using entertaining videos, positive solutions and encouraging audience participation brings out incredible results!

The presentation will start at 7:00 in the Markham Place School cafeteria.  Markham Place students will be seeing a presentation by Sgt. Rich the next day in school as part of NJ’s Respect Week.