I really quite enjoyed working through these modules and was quite surprised that I had a lot of the foundation knowledge already. I was surprised that the statistics weren’t higher to be honest, because as an adult and a big user of the internet and social media I see the nastiness the internet can bring out in people.
One thing I did find interesting was that the studies show that parents are encouraging the use of social media sites, and that the legal age is only 13. I think children of this age do not have the skills, awareness and capacity to operate in an online community. More importantly I think if they are navigating in an online environment, they are clearly not being taught how to act, what’s appropriate, safety surrounding internet use and the impact of their actions on others. As a parent, I am adamant that my children are not to have a facebook page until I see fit. I think children have enough to deal with, without opening up to an online world of so many other issues.
As a teacher however, I am not sure how I will deal with this if my students are avid users of social media. I think I would endeavour to equip them with skills which are required, as well as modelling to them the appropriate behaviour for an online environment. A good example of this was the facebook photo a teacher circulated to show students how quickly a photo can be seen by thousands if not millions of people, I discussed this in an earlier post.
I really enjoyed the model which discussed a whole school approach to cyber safety by allowing parents and families to assist with design of a policy to allow some ownership over policy. After all schools have an educative role within the community so this could be utilised as an opportunity to increase community awareness. I also like how they recommended creating expectations based upon the foundational policy and encouraging families to implement boundaries in the home to allow for a whole community effort to create awareness about cyber safety. I liked how they said teachers viewed this as sometimes an imposition, however they encourage teachers to see it as an invitation instead. Teachers are after all the educators in the community and often have insight that other people don’t. As I’ve heard a few times recently it’s about the mindset!
I thought it was great that the cybersmart website offers so many resources for teaching and learning that could be implemented into lessons for the classroom.
becpeacock 