This
week I read an article about an Internet safety group created in New Zealand
called Netsafe. Essentially, Netsafe provides advice and resources for
educators on how to manage online safety for their students. The site came
about after complaints of online bullying have increased over the years as
technology and Internet access is becoming more abundant with students. Netsafe
found a need for schools to integrate online safety and
digital citizenship skills into the curriculum to ensure that all students are practicing
these skills in school and at home.
Netsafe can be
useful to develop a proactive plan to talk about what is important and appropriate
in school communities while developing incident response procedure and security
systems. These lessons can be accessed online or face-to-face for parents and educators
to become more aware of protocol for online safety and digital citizenship.
I think this site
is beneficial to not only technology administrators and educators, but parents
and students as well. From what I gathered from the article and from browsing
the Netsafe site, this site has comprehensive article on cyber bullying,
harassment, cold call scams, and overall online safety. One feature that I
truly find beneficial is an incidence-reporting feature. Victims and bystanders
can report an online incident and a Netsafe professional will contact the
reporter with advice on what to do next. This feature is a great way for young
students to report online bullying or harassment especially if they are not
comfortable bringing the problem to their parents or teachers.
References:
Curran, M. (2017, May 29). Netsafe helping students deal with cyber
bullying. Retrieved June 07, 2017, from
http://nz.educationhq.com/news/39693/netsafe-helping-students-deal-with-cyber-bullying/
Netsafe: https://www.netsafe.org.nz/
Thank you for sharing this article. Cyber bullying has become so common for our students today. I can see how English Language Learners might be targeted even more. It is important to keep all of our students safe and allow them freedom to express themselves without being bullied. I like the idea of Netsafe in order to protect all students but especially ELL's. It is important to teach our students about internet safety.
ReplyDeleteNetsafe seems to be a good introduction of digital citizenship before releasing technology into students hands for educational purposes. Teachers can incorporate Netsafe into a lesson at the beginning of the school year. Students can even make their own videos and flyers summarizing main points from NetSafe with a link or QR Code to the site. Then students will also have a safe cyber place to go if they need to report an incident. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great topic we need to remember to address as we start to introduce more and more technology into the classroom. If we are going to encourage our students to use technology, it is important to teach them to be good digital citizens. Remember, many of our students are coming to us with having had very limited (if any) access to technology in their home countries. We make sure they have the school's Acceptable Use Policy in their native language, but that is not enough. Students need to be taught internet safety as well as proper behavior online. Netsafe seems like a great place for teachers to start. I wonder if they offer any of their resources in other languages for students to share with their families. Did you see anything like that when you were exploring the site?
ReplyDeleteI think this site would be great for teachers and parents alike! It is sad we even need to discuss how to appropriately interact with others on the internet. But bullying is such a huge issue for so many students. My daughter was bullied on Facebook to the point she no longer wanted to go to school. Maybe if students knew they were actively being monitored and held accountable for their words by school officials , there might be a decline in online bullying!
ReplyDelete