In an ever-increasing digital age, how can one monitor children’s online usage and keep them safe?

Online safety was the focus of our third ICT lecture and it was interesting to learn about the various ways in which potential dangers can be overcome or, at least, minimised. As each generation is digitally literate than the previous, it can be a challenge for teachers and schools to stay one step ahead of their pupils and educate them against the ‘darker side’ of technology.

However, there is a suggestion that the fundamental values which we wish children to possess when they leave primary school, such as empathy and common sense, may overflow or translate into managing e-safety. For example, if children are kind and respectful, then this can help to minimise cyber-bullying.

In theory, this should work, but what of the other potential dangers?

It is just as important to remind children to think about their own digital footprint whilst online and to be careful what content they look at online; here the work of Byron (2008) on content, contact and conduct is of particular use. At a school level it is also possible to encourage the use of safer search engines, although there is a question as to how good a filter these actually are. Below is a notebook that our group made on e-safety, with a particular focus on data protection for use with colleagues in a school.

Whilst a challenging subject, there are various avenues to explore this area, and the key appears to be education, both of teacher and pupil.

[embeddoc url=”https://eportfolios.roehampton.ac.uk/owensl/files/2017/01/Data-Protection-Slides_Complete-19bfwnj.notebook” download=”all” viewer=”google”]Data Protection Slides_Complete-19bfwnj