Teaching strategies for internet safety

A range of strategies can be used by teachers to minimise the risks associated with accessing the internet using a computer or another enabled device, and instead develop in students an understanding of safe and responsible action.

The skills and knowledge described here, and in the CyberSafe Schools Quick Reference Guide are only indicative. Some students will be more advanced in their knowledge and skills than others and consequently there may be significant gaps in an individual’s or group’s knowledge and experience.

Internet basics

To navigate a virtual environment safely and to recognise the different elements of online material, students need a basic knowledge of internet terminology and functions. To teach students these capacities, teachers can:

• show students how to distinguish online from offline content;
• explain the different functions of browser buttons;
• point out the different features of a web page or website;
• demonstrate how links work;
• and discuss the role of graphics and text in communicating information.

Resource discovery

While the World Wide Web is a rich source of information and therefore a useful tool for learning, information can vary in terms of appropriateness, quality and accuracy.

Safe zones can protect students from exposure to inappropriate material. While technological measures—such as spam filters, content filters and internet rating systems—are very effective, they are not fail-safe. Consequently students need to be equipped with the skills and knowledge that enable them to deal with exposure to inappropriate material.

Students need to develop safe and effective resource discovery skills. These include skills thatenable students to discover and retrieve reliable and relevant information, as well as to discern and deal with inappropriate content.

Resource discovery skills at lower primary level

• Identify reliable websites for students to explore.
• Ensure that students use approved, educational search engines.
• Explain and demonstrate techniques of searching using selected keywords.
• Assist students to browse a website to distinguish relevant fromirrelevant material.
• Use approved safety procedures for dealing with inappropriate content, such as using the ‘back’ button, exiting the browser, clicking home or turning off the monitor.

As students progress through the stages of schooling, they need to become ‘information literate’.

Resource discovery skills at middle primary level

• Investigate if the school uses filtering technologies and/or provides access to safe search environments.
• Prepare students to make judgements about the credibility of internet content based onknowledge of author, publisher and domain extension, for example ‘com.au’, ‘edu.au’, ‘org.au’ and ‘gov.au’.
• Discuss and explain the importance of safe search engines with students, and model how to use them.
• Use reporting and support protocols for dealing with confronting or unsuitable content.

When students reach secondary school, they need more scope to explore the internet and develop skills that enable them to critically evaluate website content.

Resource discovery skills at secondary level

• Encourage exploration of a range of safe and vetted websites.
• Demonstrate how to critically evaluate websites that are sexually exploitative or use racial vilification, or have extreme political views.
• Provide guidance and procedures for dealing safely with confronting or dangerous content.

Personal information and privacy

While identity information can be used for legitimate purposes, it can also be used for dishonest purposes. Just as you would not provide such information to someone you meet on the street, nor should you do so on the internet. Issues to do with identity protection revolve mainly around web authoring and website requests for this information.

Creating web pages can be a fun and educational experience for students, however there is the danger that students will post photographs of themselves or other students to websites. It is also conceivable that a student’s email address could be placed on a website, and they could, as a consequence, receive sexually explicit or offensive emails. Placing home addresses and other personal details also carries a risk of inappropriate use.

Awareness of personal information and privacy at primary level

• Discuss the benefits and risks of personal web publishing.
• Explain school policy in language that is age and capacity appropriate.
• Encourage students to develop web pages that conform to school policy.
• Provide models of safe student web pages.

Awareness of personal information and privacy at middle primary level

• Alert students to the dangers of posting inappropriate content such as sexist, violent or hateful materials.
• Explain that electronic communication should not be used to harass or bully others.
• Explain the dangers of posting identity information.

Students could be confronted with websites that ask for personal information in online forms. Both risks and benefits associated with revealing identity details could be demonstrated to students.

Awareness of personal information and privacy at secondary level

• Stress that some websites ask for personal identity information for illegitimate reasons.
• Advise students to generally avoid completing online forms that ask for identity details, and/or to seek advice from a teacher, parent or carer if it seems to be a reputable company or organisation.
• Encourage students to seek advice from a teacher, parent or carer if they are not sure about the credibility of the organisation and the information sought.

Communication and collaboration

Internet technologies such as email, chat rooms and electronic conferencing are fast, easy and effective means of communicating and sharing information. Internet-enabled devices, including mobile and camera phones and personal digital assistants (PDAs), can also be used for text messaging and for exchanging photographs or video.

There are, however, some risks associated with using these technologies:

• Emails can contain virus-infected attachments or be used to bully and harass, including of sexual harassment or racial vilification.
• Text messages can be used for the same purpose.
• In chat rooms the same risks apply, and in unmoderated chat room environments people may adopt false identities. This is known as ‘online grooming’.
• In extreme cases, students can be exposed to physical danger in the event of a face-to-face meeting with someone they may have met in a chat room.

Students should be made aware of the expectation of the school and their community regarding their own use of email. Teachers should:

• familiarise students with the school’s acceptable use policy;
• explain that it is not acceptable to send emails that make others feel uncomfortable or that are defamatory; and
• teach the conventions of ‘netiquette’ for using email.

Students also need to know how to deal with email bullying and harassment, and the effect it can have on recipients. Teachers should:

• advise students to notify a teacher, parent or carer if the sender is a known bully, or if they have sent unpleasant or annoying messages before;
• ask students to report it to the sender’s email account provider (you can find this address after the @ sign) if the bullying happens through a personal email account;
• instruct students not to open an email if the sender’s name is not familiar;
• look at the message and talk to the student about the issues, emphasising that it is not the student’s fault; and
• deal with all instances of bullying in the context of the school’s internet or bullying policy.

Students need to be familiar with appropriate chat room behaviours and the protocols that govern them. Teachers should:

• emphasise ‘stranger danger’ and stress that the people students may meet in chat rooms may not be whom they seem, and that they may imitate the language of students (‘online grooming’);
• teach chat protocols in monitored or moderated chat rooms;
• promote netiquette focused on being polite and considerate;
• emphasise the importance of not exchanging personal information or photographs ofthemselves; and
• warn students not to meet someone from a chat room face-to-face unless in the company of an adult in a public place.

Commercialism

The internet offers many benefits for online commerce, or e-business. It enables people to buy and sell goods and to make financial transactions online. For those setting up a business it offers an additional competitive dimension, however some transactional websites are not what they purport to be. There are illegitimate websites that make false and misleading claims – websites that aim to deceive. Some sites are even bogus or ‘dummies’. As a result, transactional websites that ask for credit card details should be treated with caution. Students need to be familiar with personal financial security on the internet.

Teachers should:

• encourage students to exercise care when making internet purchases;
• advise students to ignore unsolicited email, or spam, that makes monetary offers and proposes ‘get-rich-quick’ schemes;
• explain that there are both secured and unsecured websites;
• demonstrate how to distinguish between secure and unsecured websites.

Bridging the gap between home and school

Schools are relatively confined areas where students can use different technologies under the supervision of teachers or the protection of technologies such as internet filters. At home, however, the level of protection may not be as high—technological devices may not be as effective, or they might not even exist.

Parents or carers may be unable to supervise or monitor their children’s use of the internet as effectively as teachers. For example, while school codes of conduct and student agreements regulate use of electronic communication, these do not apply at home. Students may deliberately or inadvertently search for inappropriate content at home where they have access to conventional search engines rather than the safe educational websites that they may be required to use at school.

Consequently, it is important that students be taught safe and responsible use of the internet and be educated about the risks associated with it. The aim should be to equip students with a level of skill and knowledge that enables them to use the internet safely at all times and in any environment. Schools may choose to advise parents of relevant technologies, guidelines or strategies on using the internet safely in the home.

Internet safety and the curriculum

National, state and territory education departments, including the National Catholic Education Commission and the Independent Schools Council of Australia, advise that teaching internet safety skills is an important component of the curriculum. They are unanimous that it is the responsibility of all teachers, rather than teachers in a few subject disciplines.

Most state and territory curriculums do not refer to internet safety specifically, although someof the newer syllabuses now include internet safety within the safety strand. While most states and territories have a safety strand or its equivalent in their health and physical Education frameworks or syllabuses, these make detailed reference to topics such as traffic safety and personal security rather than to internet safety. The connections between these are self-evident, so this may be a useful learning area to embed teaching about safe use of the internet.

English curriculums and syllabuses emphasise the development of critical or information literacies. The skills required to evaluate texts are equally applicable to multimodal technologies and to the internet. Teaching about reading and writing is a core component of most frameworks and syllabuses. Safe student communication and online publishing can be developed in English classes.

Teachers of the technology learning area, where there is an information strand or its equivalent, are likely to be high-level users of ICT and online resources. Issues such as the legal, ethical, economic and social impact of the internet as they relate to internet safety can be investigated in the technology classroom.

Many teachers use the internet for research in learning areas such as English, Languages Other Than English, science, and studies of society and environment. Teaching about internet safety within the context of teaching programs in these learning areas is essential if students are to make full and informed use of the internet as a rich source for learning.

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