Do you know what Zoom-bombing is? No one did – until a few weeks ago. Thanks to COVID-19, millions of students are home connecting with their teachers and classmates virtually through webinar apps like Zoom, and now exposed to an all new form of child abuse.

Maybe you have read a story or maybe it has happened to someone you know. Fifteen middle school students and their teacher were together in a Zoom webinar when an unknown person joined their webinar and shared their desktop that contained pornographic images. The intruder also entered vulgar text messages in a chat window for the entire class to see. The stunned and horrified teacher immediately shut down the Zoom call. The principal then had the unenviable task of calling every family affected by the Zoom-bomber. 

Make Zoom Safe

Zoom has recently updated their software and published a help doc to keep uninvited guests out of your zoom event. If you are an educator hosting a Zoom classroom, you must read Zoom’s help doc to protect you and your students.

A Parenting Moment

The Zoom-bombing incident is an opportunity to talk about personal safety, in real-life and online, with your child. My biggest piece of advice I can give a parent when it comes to having these kinds of conversations with their child, whether it is about drugs, alcohol, vaping, or sexual abuse: Be a good listener. Ask a lot of open-ended questions. For example, you could say, “I heard about [issue], what do you ...