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Safety awareness: empowering students to be technologically literate: technologically literate students can be encouraged to collaborate with their parents to make sure that technology and its artifacts in the home are used properly to make the home safer.

Article Excerpt
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Introduction

According to WebMD (2002), "a new report shows dangers abound on the home front ... causing as many as 20,000 deaths, 7 million disabling injuries, and 20 million hospital trips in the U.S. each year." While this information is disturbing, it is even more disturbing that many adults surveyed by WebMD (2002), "can't think of anything they should or would do in the coming year to make their homes safer or to prevent unintentional injuries."

The Home Safety Council (2006) reports that home injuries make up one third of injuries in the United States. As the Home Safety Council (2006) reported, "the top five leading causes of unintentional home injury or death are falls, poisoning, fire/burn, choking/suffocation, and drowning" (Para. 1). Because the home is separate from the school learning environment, home safety is something that many teachers do not address. Addressing home safety in the technology classroom would be prudent considering that "an average of 2,096 children younger than 15 die each year as a result of an unintentional home injury" (Home Safety Council, 2006, Para. 5). While the average of 2,096 school-age child deaths is disturbing, it is equally disturbing that school-age children under the age of 15, "experience an average of more than 3 million nonfatal unintentional home injuries every year" (Home Safety Council, 2006, Para. 5). Technology educators should consider addressing home safety issues in the classroom to enhance technological literacy and contribute to the awareness of and potential reduction...

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