We live in an increasingly digitised society, and to be well equipped for life, children must be taught to be aware of the risks they are exposed to during their online activities, understand the strategies for minimising those risks and be confident of what to do if things do go wrong.
It is younger children who are particularly vulnerable to safeguarding risks when online, so education in online safety must start early at prep schoolsand continue through to senior schools. Some teachers may need training as well particularly anyone who does not know what an ‘app’ is, or thinks a ‘tweet’ is simply a bird noise. Teaching resources (for all ages) of children are available on the CEOP site, and DigitalME has just released a social networking safety awareness pack aimed at primary schools, named Safe. Don’t forget that as a school, as teachers, as someone working in the education sector you owe a duty of care to your pupils to keep them safe. Doing nothing isn’t an option.
Despite this cyberspace poses a great many opportunities including creating content (eg. through blogs or tweets), discovering modern experiences (eg. a book or music), research for homework or other projects, a platform for self expression and joining like minded sets of people, to name just a few. The educational potential of the WWW is excessive. And social networking websites such as Facebook know this. Facebook actually markets itself on its ability to be used as an educational tool for example, you can create a group which would allow a class to share information instantly and in a way that students are very comfortable with. Social networking sites have also been useful in helping children to build up relationships with foreign students prior to exchange visits. For more informations regarding the educational potential of social networks, you may like to visit our Facebook in Education page.
Make sure you investigate boarding schools.