BSA Cyber Chip

[ZScout5]

New Cyber Chip Program for Cub and Boy Scouts (no kidding)

 

Cubs: blue shaded patch and certificate card

Different requirements for Grades 1-3 and Grades 4-5

 

Boys: green shaded patch and certificate card

Different requirements for Grades 6-8 and Grades 9-12

 

www.scouting.org/cyberchip

 

Haven't delved deeply into the requirements or resources yet. What do you think about this?

 

Z

 

 

 

[BrotherhoodWWW]

I think this is one more EPIC FAIL idea that BSA has come up with. How soon will this crap become a required part of the program? Tote and chip makes sense. This however, must be re-earned annually. In boards of review we are not allowed to re-test or even test and yet this needs to be an annual requirement and when you read deeper it appears to be a entire unit all at once kind of thing. The BSA does not need to be the answer to every single facet of of youths life.

[Basementdweller]

Been discussed a number of times on this board

 

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=341873

 

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=270574

[BrotherhoodWWW]

Basement, thanks for being helpful! Perhaps next time you can actually answer the OP's question and only provide links that actually deal with his question rather than the broader subject. Your first non-link resource is a rather short and drafty thread. Once you changed the course it was taking it simply died and fell off the current posts page which believe it or not some folks look to first. This issue has been brought to the forefront last week by Scouting magazine on Facebook. Seems like a great time to revisit it as clearly only a few people commented on your thread in March.

[Twocubdad]

May be a good program, but it's hard to tell. As usual, the BSA website absolutely sucks. I tried to drill into some of the ditail but the two sites keep linking you back and forth to the other for detailed information.

 

Our troop is headed in this direction from a current ban on electronic which works about as well as the 18th amendment. Kinda a loose don't-ask, don't-tell which is really more of a don't-hit-me-in-the-nose-with-your-phone sort of a thing now. We want to go to more of an "appropriate use" policy.

 

This may be a good starting point, but what I'd like to see is a list of electronics etiquitte rules specifically for Scouting. Anyone have something like this in their troop?

 

I'm guessing the annual renewal thing is so the third-party vendor supplying the stuff gets to clip you for another stack of cards and patches. Don't care. Our intent is to treat this the same as a Totin' Chip -- it's yours until you abuse the priviledge.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

[EagleBeaver]

Since Twocubdad asked: http://boyscouttrail.com/docs/techchiptraining.pdf

Cyber Chip is mostly online safety. Tech Chip is electronics use.

[CalicoPenn]

Fine as an optional program for parents to use with their children if they wish. As a unit activity? It wouldn't even be on my radar since we don't have computers and don't control access to computers for the lads. I wouldn't require anyone to earn it - I would just provide the information to the scouts and their parents - and if they wanted the patches, they can pay for them.

 

I'd rather a troop promote the National Outdoor Awards program over this.

[suzisk8]

I wish it was more like the Techchip. In fact, when I have my boys do the Cyberchip, they will also do the Techchip too because my son loves to play with my smartphone and there are other parents in the pack who do not have smartphones and I do not want them to feel bad. IMHO, it is a fail because it should combine internet safety AND proper usage of phones and situations. Which would be good for the older boys because when they get into college, boy those professors want the cell phones off!(recent experience, I am back in school).

[shortridge]

The Boy Scout requirements amount to signing a pledge, understanding your family's computer rules, watching three relevant videos, teaching Internet safety to fellow Scouts and understanding your unit's electronics use rules. It will take about an hour if you include the teaching. It's a snoozer.

 

Oh - and there's a really sneaky requirement in there to like the BSA's Facebook page in order to artificially inflate the BSA's social media standing. Slick, Irving, real slick.

 

I think the whole thing is stupid. Parents who don't have an understanding with their kids about proper computer use aren't going to enforce something that the BSA made their kid to just to get a patch.(This message has been edited by shortridge)

[qwazse]

Scout son #2 says:

 

"Pointless. Utterly ridiculous. So we need a green card for the Internet now?"

 

Fore me, anything that perpetuates the EDGE delusion is not worth my time.

 

Although a venturing level pledge that involves responding promptly to advisor's Email would come in handy if it works better than that Silver-Ring thing!