Increasingly more and more favourite games are becoming available through online multi-player platforms, these can be great educational tools as well as just for enjoyment.
It’s one of the questions that comes up a lot on our E-Safety work to Parents / Carers and professionals, ‘How do you set controls and ensure safety’? So to have this new resource with practical tips, tricks and Q & A’s is incredibly helpful.
This UK site, www.askaboutgames.com really is a must have resource for professionals, parents/carers and players too. It’s got great advice on playing both on and offline games sensibly and is relevant for all ages and stages. There are downloadable pdfs of information sheets and I you can order hard copies of the credit card sized information booklets if you contact them or CEOP direct.
One area we cover on our Internet Safety and Responsible Use training is downloading music. We recommend the Pro-music / Childnet leaflet that can be donloaded here.
This website www.pro-music.org is a must for all wanting to find out more, it’s suitable for young people, parents and all professionals. It could also be used as a context for learning.
It’s a global resource that covers all the news and views, do’s and don’t about using the internet legitmately to access music. Why not put it on your favourites page?
I would see this featuring as a key part of a program of Internet Safety in schools and it could also be considered in curriculum areas such as Expressive Arts, Technologies, Health and Wellbeing..I would also add Literacy in there as you could be looking at skills for critical thinking and searching the ownership / validity of text
Why not try it and let us know how you get on? You could show pupils during a lesson and discuss favourite sites, what music is most downloaded? You could use this as a way to begin to introduce issues of copyright. It’s got a great page that explodes myths which again can be great discussion tools.
The Highland E-Safety Group have spent the Easter hols reflecting on the recent training that has been provided in Highland.
As well as the half-day ‘Internet Safety and Responsible Use’ courses there have been a number of bespoke sessions delivered for a range of professionals and parents. This has included sessions for the following groups:
Youth Workers / Intensive Support Unit Staff
Foster Carer Link Workers
Children’s Residential Home Staff
Highland Youth Voice Xec Committee
Youth Work Development Staff
Health Promoting Schools Officers
Support for Learning Staff
Library Service Officers
The above bespoke sessions can last from 1 – 2 hours and comprise of the key issues for children and young people using different ways of communication, gaming, cyberbullying and the internet. These sessions also include what resources and local support is available. These will continue throughout the year on request from individuals.
The multi-agency half-day ‘Internet Safety and Responsible Use Sessions’ have been delivered by CEOP Ambassadors and use the CEOP introductory materials and the Thinkuknow education materials, they are designed for staff working predominantly in school settings who wil be taking E-Safety delivery forward. In addition to the CEOP materials (which have to be used for participants to become registered TUK trainers) the training covers the local perspective, cyberbullying, support for staff, the way our schools are using blogs and wikis and most importantly how to create the right conditions to use the approved resources with young people.
We believe it’s vital to look at the wider context and see how the TUK and Childnet resources can be used across the curriculum and through the training aim to ensure that participants can do this confidently.
Our evaluations of the half day training have been overwhelmingly positive, however it seems that there are still questions to be asked and issues explored, a half-day is just not long enough. To this end our next planned session on the 24th April will include an opportunity throughout the lunch and afterwards for participants to delve into the resources (laptops with internet access provided) and work in small groups to assess how they would use them and what else they need to do to create the right conditions (with the support of other professionals) to take it forward in their school communities.
Myself , Robert Quigley (our newest CEOP Ambassador!) and Jim Henderson have agreed to create a new training event on the 28th May 2009, which will be a full day to ensure that participants can do all of the above and walk away with the tools, skills and confidence to drive the Highland E-Safety Strategy forward. Depending on the outcome of course this full day approach will become the standard framework for all future ‘Internet Safety and Responsible Use’ training in Highland.
For more information about our courses please do get in touch.
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) provides the only INTERNET ‘hotline’ for reporting illegal images on the web. The Highland E-Safety Group supplies information to Parents / Carers and Professionals in Highland regarding the IWF so that Highlanders are aware of how they can keep themselves safe online and report any illegal content. The IWF works in partnership with Police, Government and the Internet Industry to minimise the availability of illegal content online. Our advice is that if you see any images or content online that you think fits into any of these categories, please do report it to the IWF.
child abuse images
criminally obscene images
criminally racist content
The Internet Watch Foundation hope to make the Internet a safer place for everyone and have provided an easy to complete step by step report process on their website. Of course – if you have any immediate concerns about anyone’s welfare please do dial 999. There is also new information on our brand new web page on The Highland Council dedicated to Internet Safety for Children & Young People, Parens and Carers please stop by and take a look.
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Increasingly more and more favourite games are becoming available through online multi-player platforms, these can be great educational tools as well as just for enjoyment.
