Safer Internet Day is organised by Insafe each year in February to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the world. This year’s Safer Internet Day was on 5th February 2013.
The third topic that they deal with is Pornography.
Although it may be difficult, it is important to talk to children and young people about pornography and how it can provide an unrealistic portrayal of sex and relationships.
CEOP alongside other experts in the field, talk to parents and carers about how to discuss this often difficult topic with their child. For more information visit - www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents
Safer Internet Day is organised by Insafe each year in February to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the world. This year’s Safer Internet Day is 5th February 2013.
As part of this year’s Safer Internet Campaign The Child Exploitation Online Protection Agency (CEOP)have released some short little videos on their YouTube Channel that have been designed to help teachers talk about some of the issues surrounding Internet Safety and Responsible Use. What is quite nice about the resource is that there is a Primary and Secondary Version for some of the topics.
The second topic that they deal with is Cyberbullying. Cyberbullying is bullying that takes place via technology. As a parent/ carer it can be difficult to know who to turn to for help and advice. In the videos below CEOP and other experts in this field offer this advice and practical steps on how to protect and support their child if they are being cyberbullied.
Safer Internet Day is organised by Insafe each
year in February to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology
and mobile phones, especially amongst children and young people across the
world. This year’s Safer Internet Day is 5th February 2013.
As part of this year’s Safer Internet Campaign The
Child Exploitation Online Protection Agency (CEOP) have released some short little
videos on their YouTube Channel that have been designed to help teachers talk
about some of the issues surrounding Internet Safety and Responsible Use. What is
quite nice about the resource is that there is a Primary and Secondary Version for
some of the topics.
The first topic that they deal with is grooming. It
is important that parents and carers understand how children and young people can
be groomed online and what they can do to protect their child in the spaces
they inhabit.
Sponsored by Facebook
I did some work recently for the EUN where we looked at the role of Social
Media in Learning and Education (SMILE). One of the outputs of my
contribution to the project was a professional development eLearning course for
European Teachers and Head Teachers on the use of Social Media in Schools.
As this part of the
course has now finished (and we have gone into the community development phase)
I am re-posting a version of the materials here so others can benefit from
them.
This is part 5 of 6 - Internet Safety and Responsible Use
Internet Safety and Responsible Use:
The Course Notes and Links
1. Internet Safety and Responsible
Use
Whenever we talk
about Internet Safety we must also talk about Responsible Use. Similarly, when we talk about the safe use of
social media we must also talk about the
responsible use of social media.
Unfortunately
some people still believe that the only way to keep children safe online is to ‘lock and block’ access to parts of the
Internet though web filtering. The reality of this is that this doesn’t remove
the actual dangers (perceived or
otherwise) and it also makes it almost impossible for educators to deliver
key Internet Safety and Responsible Use messages.
The fundamental
requirement to keeping children and young people safe on-line is to make sure
that they have received an appropriate education in how to use tools and
services appropriately. They also need
to understand the wider issues of privacy and how to report if they experience
something they do not feel comfortable with.
The Cloud
Learn Research Report from Heppell.net and the Nominet Trust provides a useful insight to UK
schools who have started to challenge the culture of ‘locking and blocking’.
2. Understanding Terminology
One important
consideration of any aspect of Internet Safety and Responsible Use, including
the responsible use of social media, is terminology. If we want to help keep
children and young people safe on-line we must all be speaking the same
language and this should include an understanding of tools and services that
children and young people use.
When exploring
tools and services it is important that adults ask what websites children use,
but also how they use the website and what the website is used for. Only by
understanding the purpose of social media tools will we be able to offer
children and young people appropriate advice and support to help them stay
safe.
The meaning of a
word ‘friend’ is an interesting
example of how technology may be changing language over time. A friend to an
adult is likely to be someone they trust, someone they are happy to meet for a
coffee, someone they are happy to invite to their house etc… Yet a friend to a
young person may just be a connection on a social networking space. Establishing a common language is really
important.
This YouTube
Video illustrates nicely how technology has changed language over time - http://goo.gl/umcQX - its also pretty funny!
3. Privacy
Language is also really important
when it comes to the term ‘privacy’.
Recent research such as the Pew Internet
Report suggests that young people are more concerned about
privacy than ever before. However, although many young people will tell you
they are concerned about their privacy on-line very few young people can actually tell you what privacy is. It's a
good example of young people telling you what they want you to hear, rather
than actually understanding the meaning of what you are asking.
In Europe we
have laws that protect our privacy but the reality of it is lots of people just
give their data away. Other people (including our friends on social networks) also
give data / information about other people away as well.
We often just don't know what we have signed up for when we 'tick' the
small print at the bottom of the terms and conditions of a new Social Media
Service. Helping young people understand
terms & conditions, privacy and what privacy setting means is an important
aspect of keeping young people safe on-line.
4. Digital Footprints
Digital
footprints are the digital trail that you leave behind you on the Internet
whenever you comment on a blog; share something on a social networking space;
or up-load an image or video. Other people can also contribute to your digital
footprint by up-loading things about you that are linked to your name or
profile. An example of this might be when you appear in a newspaper that is
then digitised or a friend ‘tagging’ a photograph of you on Facebook.
The majority of
people have got a digital footprint these days (even if they don’t know it yet!) and almost all young people will
have a digital footprint that will get bigger as they get older. Digital
footprints are not something that we can stop but we need to make sure a young
persons digital footprint leaves a good impression. This is particularly
important when it comes to employability where increasing employers are looking
at the social networking profiles of perspective employees as well as job
application forms.
One important
emerging trend is that many very young children have got digital footprints.
These are footprints that have often been created by their parents. This is
backed up by an interesting
piece of research on the AVG Blog which found:
The
average age at which a child acquires an online presence courtesy of their
parents is at six months, and by the time they are two 81% of children
have some kind of ‘digital footprint’.
A
third (33%) of children have had images posted online from birth
A
quarter (23%) of children have even had their pre-birth scans uploaded to
the Internet by their parents
Seven
per cent (7%) of babies have even had an email address created for them by
their parents
More
than 70% of mothers said they posted baby and toddler images online to
share with friends and family
The important
consideration here is that we must make sure that parents receive information
about responsible behaviour on social networking sites. This has to include
education into the potential implications of creating digital footprints for
their children.
Resources like
the Internet Archive Wayback Machine can be useful in helping young people
understand that it is almost impossible to delete anything from the Internet.
Internet Safety
and Responsible Use needs to be included in your Social Media Policy. But even
more important than this is acknowledging the Internet and other Digital
Technology in your schools Child Protection and Learning & Teaching
Policies.
I will look at
creating a Social Media Policy in more detail in my next blog post.
6. Social Media on the Curriculum
When trying to
include social media in the curriculum it is important to emphasise that Social
Media is just another tool that teachers can be use to motivate students and to
enhance the teaching process.
One way that we
can encourage young people to behave responsibly when using social media is for
teachers to model the responsible use of social media tools during their normal
classroom practice.
Teachers can put
structures in place to help support learners in the use social media which
involve modelling behaviour, working jointly with children, developing rules
and eventually leading to independent learning (supported by social media
tools) that is built around a classroom culture of trust and respect.
There are also a
number of resources to help teachers in Europe to deliver key messages around
Internet Safety and Responsible Use. The European InSafe Network is a great place to start looking for resources to
support you with your teaching.
Here is the complete Interview that I took part in at the recent UK Internet Safety Centre eSafety Live Events in Edinburgh. I was being interviewed by a group of young people from St Paul's Primary School in Edinburgh as part of their on-going work with Radio Waves. I think they did a great job of interviewing and also editing the video.
The main point that I was trying to make is that in 2012 should we really still be talking about ‘eSafety’? Shouldn’t safety in the digital word be integrated into part of the normal safe and responsible use messages that we give to children and young people to support them in other aspects of learning and growing up?
In fact the ‘e’ has been bothering me on a lot of words recently…. eSafety, eAssessment, eLearning, ePortfolio, eModeration etc…
It seems to me that in 2012 technology has successfully infiltrated every aspect of our lives apart from our schools. What we should actually be talking about is safety, assessment, learning, portfolio and moderation that is fit for purpose and a modem era. Digital is not just part of this solution and it can't be seen as an optional extra it has to be fully integrated.
As part of the Edinburgh Event I was also interviewed along with representatives from Xbox, Beatbullying, Facebook and Russell Prue by a group of children from St Paul's Primary School in Edinburgh. This was part of their ongoing work with Radio Waves.
The young people were incredibly professional with the filming, sound recording and interviewing. You can see the final interview below where they ask us about Top Tips for Internet Safety and also how safe we think we are on-line.
I’m doing lots of interesting Internet Safety and Responsible Use work at the moment. Last week this involved attending and presenting at The UK Internet Safety Centre’s eSafety Live Events in both London and Edinburgh. The Scottish Government supported the Edinburgh Event.
At the London and Edinburgh Event I was asked to share some thoughts on the Challenges and Opportunities for Computer Games in Education. Lots of people have been asking for the slides so I have embedded them below - I’ll write up the notes at some point soon.
At the Edinburgh Event as well as the Computer Games workshop I ran two additional workshops on the use of Social Media in Schools. Again, I have embedded the slides that I used below and will write a more detailed narrative explaining some of the key points over the Easter break.
Today (7th February 2012) is Safer Internet Day and CEOP has launched 'The Parents' and Carers' Guide to the Internet', a light hearted and realistic look at what it takes to be a better online parent. The show covers topics such as, talking to your child about the technologies they use and the things they might see, such as pornography.
Hosted by my good pal Jonathan Baggaley and with interviews from leading experts such as, Professor Tanya Byron, Dr Linda Papadopoulos and Reg Bailey, as well as key industry players from Facebook, Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters , the online guide aims to equip parents and carers with the tools to have those tricky conversations with their children to help keep their family safe online.
p> This is part of a series of posts showcasing some interesting infographics that are available on the web. For more information on infographics have a look here and for some of the problems with using infographics graphics have a look here.
Today's infographic is on what happens if you loose your mobile phone. A nice little infographic resource from McAfee useful for Internet Safety and Responsible Use Lessons - what do you think?
One of the things that we created was a really good conference website that contains an archive of all of the keynote and workshop presentations. But the other thing that we produced was a set of conference cartoons that show the main discussion points from the conference.
They were drawn by Graham Ogilvie (from Ogilvie Design) and they provided a great stimulus for discussion on the day. The twenty most popular designs were then re-drawn and inked.
We think the cartoons are fantastic and a great way to communicate some of the key messages regarding Internet Safety and Responsible Use to staff and parents.
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