Lot’s of schools across Scotland are busy organising events in the lead up to Safer Internet day, which is Tuesday 8 February this year.
If you are planning an event we would love to hear from you. If you would like to guest post on this blog, telling everyone what your school has been doing before, during or after the day, then please get in touch by emailing me – A.Hamilton@LTScotland.org.uk or by leaving your contact details as a comment to this post.
The Cultural Co-ordinator team at South Lanarkshire Council are currently planning a visual art project on the theme of internet safety.
We are finalising plans for the delivery of the project but it looks like it will take place with four small groups of secondary age pupils who will work with a range of colleagues and with a graffiti artist. The idea is that pupils will create artwork based around the theme and we hope to create some resources (such as mousemats, postcards, screensavers) using their work.
We’re working with a range of colleagues including social work staff, ‘More Choices, More Chances’ workers and the South Lanarkshire Child Protection Committee.
If anyone has any ideas/suggestions or experiences which they can share to make the project as valuable as possible that would be greatly appreciated. Or if you would like to find out any further information please feel free to contact me – Steph Toms – on 01355 578 165 or stephanie.toms@ics.s-lanark.org.uk
Matters 2 Me is a DVD that uses specially commissioned animations to engage a young audience. The DVD presents situations, characters and landscapes in a way that is readily recognizable as a diverse community in contemporary Britain.
According to the Matters 2 Me website:
“This unique DVD does not concentrate on outdated notions of “stranger-danger” and the threats that strangers might pose to our children. Instead, the focus is on the far more common dangers posed by family members and other adults who have power and authority over children. It also highlights the danger from other children”.
It’s a commercially available resource but there are some clips available for all schools to use on YouTube. The one embedded below tackles on-line grooming and would be suitable for use in upper primary.
New research reveals extent of mobile web safety hazards
· 85% of children don’t have parental controls activated on their mobile phone
· 68% of parents think children accessing adult content on their mobile phone is a growing problem
· 81% of parents agree that they need more information and guidance on how to stop their children accessing adult content via their mobile phones
· Tanya Byron and The Carphone Warehouse launch free advice booklet on how parents can keep their children safe
New research involving 3,000 parents is being released today by The Carphone Warehouse. The results highlight an increase in mobile web browsing by young people, and a growing concern by parents as to the kinds of content they are freely accessing.
With the rise of smartphone technology, many parents are unaware that risks to their children, like inappropriate content, identity theft and cyber-bullying are now as significant on the phone as they are on the computer. And yet, compelling new research shows that over three quarters (85%) of children with smartphones don’t have parental controls activated.
48% of parents who took part in the research, conducted by YouGov, wrongly thought it wasn’t possible for their child to download adult content on their mobile phone, and only just over half had any concerns about the safety of their child’s identity online. As a result, just 15% of children have parental controls activated to protect them from such dangers; with parents either unaware of the risks (46% of parents haven’t activated controls because they didn’t think they were necessary), or unaware that protection is available (40% of parents haven’t activated controls because they didn’t know they existed).
The results add further weight to Professor Tanya Byron’s advice to the Government earlier this year (March 2010) which called for the industry to do more in order to tackle the issue of child internet safety. The Carphone Warehouse is today announcing a partnership with Professor Tanya Bryon to highlight the risks of mobile web usage for young people and offering guidance on how to be safe online.
With recognition that advances in technology will mean greater threats in the future (68% of parents think children accessing adult content on their mobile phone is a growing problem), over 80% of parents agree that they need more information and/or guidance to help combat them. What’s more, with the majority of parents believing that they have the most responsibility when it comes to protecting children online (60%) this is advice that’s urgently required.
Professor Tanya Byron, who has been advising the Government on child internet safety since 2007, said. “Online risks to children are as prevalent when they access the internet via their mobile phone as when they access it via their PC or laptop. However, the two aren’t treated the same – partly because the latter is a much more recent phenomenon; the recent influx of smartphones to the market means these are no longer just for business, but accessible to a much wider proportion of the market… including children. We need to apply everything that we’ve learnt through our research so far and make sure the same understanding, precautions and restrictions are applied to children using mobile phones to guarantee their online safety.”
A free advice booklet is being offered from today at all 800 Carphone Warehouse stores across the UK in which Tanya Byron outlines three key phases to help parents achieve this – Talk, Act and Engage. The ‘Talk’ phase advises parents to take an interest in their children’s lives; currently only one fifth of parents (21%) know everything that their child does on their mobile phone. ‘Act’ employs a number of devices at the parent’s disposal, including setting network filters – of which 72% of parents weren’t aware existed, and adjusting privacy settings on social networking profiles. Finally, ‘Engage’ encourages parents to try things out for themselves like getting their own social networking pages and starting a blog.
Andrew Harrison, CEO of The Carphone Warehouse, said, “We know how seriously parents take internet safety when it comes to the home computer. However, the idea of mobile web safety is still a relatively new concept for many. Smartphones bring a whole host of benefits to everyday life but parents need to be savvy to children’s usage in order to avoid possible dangers. To help bring parents up to speed, we’ve developed a free booklet which includes lots of useful advice and can be found in our 800 stores across the UK. We’ve worked with Professor Tanya Byron to provide some easy to follow tips so that parents can be confident they’re helping to keep their children safe while leaving them free to enjoy all the fantastic features of their mobile phone.”
The advice is developed in the booklet developed by Tanya and The Carphone Warehouse, which combines her own research with statistics provided by the mobile phone retailer as a basis for understanding what action is needed.
A secondary school teacher who says she has been abused on a social networking website by her pupils has told the BBC about her ordeal.
The woman, who asked not to be named, has reported the “horrific” material she found about herself to the police.
Full story here.
space
For me, stories like this make the teaching of Internet Safety and Responsible Use even more important. Would better understanding of this issue have stopped it in the first place? Should there be clearer laws against it? Are teachers able to take action with the current laws? Do we educate our young people enough about publishing to the web and understanding the rights and wrongs of what is and is not acceptable?
Would be great to have your thoughts.
CEOP have created an animation and lesson plan/activity sheet for young people with a range of cognitive or communication difficulties, special educational needs or learning disabilities. Three versions of the animation ‘Josh and Sue’ are available; ranging from mild to severe needs and an audio only version.
You can download the videos from the CEOP Resource area along with accompanying materials such as lesson plans and worksheets.
We have embedded the ‘moderate’ version of the Josh and Sue video below:
As always resources have been developed through working closely with an extensive range of disability groups and professionals working in the area. At different stages in their development, the resources have been evaluated through a range of focus groups with young people.
In Highland we firstly celebrated Safer Internet Day in 2009, we had lots of media coverage and sent leaflets to all Parents / Carers of pupils.It was a great way to keep ‘Internet Safety and Responsible Use’ at the forefront of people’s minds.
We’ve just discovered that 8th February 2011 is the planned date for SID 2011! What will you plan to do? Check our ‘Safer Internet Day’ page for ideas on www.highlandesafety.wordpress.com or go to the main Safer Internet Day site for further details.
St. Ninians High School in Glasgow has issued a statement to parents about the use of GPS on mobile phones and how this technology can be used to geo-locate students.
The advice reads:
“Mobile phones with global positioning facilities have an application called “Layar” which uses the phone’s in built GPS and compass features to overlay local data. The phone will show local points of interest in the direction the phone user is facing. This application also has a layer called “Tweeps Around” which can show all other local Twitter users – if they have allowed active geotagging on their phones. “Tweeps Around” allows a user to see other phone users’ Twitter ID’s, the text of their last “tweet” and their profile pictures. A phone user can then click on any one of them and select “Take Me There” which automatically opens up a Google map to pinpoint precisely where they are and note the actual address of the building. If your son/daughter is using their mobile phone for Twitter then the advice is to ensure active geotagging is turned off. “
More information is available on the St. Ninians School web site.
Google has recently launched a family centre to tackle some of the issues surrounding Internet Safety and Responsible Use.
The aims of the family centre are:
The site is split into four main sections:
Google builds tools into their products that help you manage Internet safety. SafeSearch and YouTube Safety Mode help you control the type of content you see on these services.
Learn how to use Google safety tools
2. Report abuse
Several Google products enable users to share their own content and they count on millions of community users to report abuse on these platforms.
Learn how to report abuse in our products
Google works closely with a number of child safety organizations in the US.
Read safety advice from Google partners
4. Video tips from Google parents
Watch videos of some parents at Google talking about how they manage their children’s safety online and read safety tips from Google.
Watch videos from Google parents
Overall a useful resource for schools and home.
Microsoft has released a free (and lengthy) ebook covering a wide range of security topics.
The book is called “Own Your Space – Keep Yourself and Your Stuff Safe Online” and although intended for upper secondary school, the book is detailed enough for anyone intereted in internet safety and security.
The text is a very comprehensive guide for teenagers (and new computer users) that covers everything from how to spot phishing tactics, to setting up your browser to protect against browser-based exploits, to dealing with cyber-stalking and there is also a useful section on cyber bullying.
It also provides interesting history and real world examples of the harm that can come from security vulnerabilities. Which I am sure will be of interest to computer teachers.
You can download all (or chapters of the book) by following this link.
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