Today we had our second ICT workshop where we learnt about searching safely on the internet and ensuring that the websites that our pupils will be using are safe and, more importantly, accurate.

Sharon put links in the PowerPoint to websites that are filled with ‘made up’ facts, but the websites are surprisingly believable.

One of which is a website about an ‘endangered’ animal called “The Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.” The website can be found here: http://www.zapatopi.net/treeoctopus/help.html The website has a lot of different tabs, one of which is about how to help make people aware of this ‘endangered species’ where it tells you to add their logo to your social media sites and join and donate to the organisation. This is quite a scary concept as there are people who could be conned into such a silly idea.

The point in showing us this website is to make us aware that not everything posted on the internet is true and it is possible that many people could fall for these ideas- in particular young children.

We were then told that we should teach children about internet safety before we ask them to carry out searching tasks on the internet. One good one is “Zip it. Block it. Flag it.” This will make children in the classroom aware of which websites they should be using and which ones they should choose to avoid for their own safety.

Therefore, I feel internet safety is something which should be taught in the classroom because it is something which is continuing to concern more and more children and it is something which we should be making more people aware of.