Ben B.
Computing Showcase Website
E-Safety
E-safety is a foremost concern in our modern-day, highly connected lives. Children are able to access and be exposed to highly upsetting, inappropriate, predatory activity on the internet which can lead to serious psychological and emotional consequences. To prevent this kind of situation from arising, the government has put into place recommendations for addressing the safety of children online; with many schemes having developed as a consequence of this.
All schools that I have worked in or visited have featured prominently in their calendar 'E-safety days' as well as tailored E-Safety rules. These have been written in terms of content and resources as appropriate for the year groups in question, with Reception children not getting the same ruleset and education as KS2.
Many E-safety programmes focus around a trio of rules:
Zip It: Do not disclose any personal information online to unknown persons. Ensure that you use a nickname in an online environment.
Block it: Prevent contact from unwanted and unknown individuals by blocking users on social networking sites and in emails.
Flag it: Alert an adult or responsible person to the thing that has upset the child.
The rulesets in schools I have visited personally have met these points with school and age-unique specific regulations, supplemented by the schools filtering system. My GPP school in particular featured an extensive section about identifying extremism online and false content of websites to address locally pertinent circumstances.
Example Video Resources and Recommended Websites.
I have seen the following video series, "SMART pirates" used to effect in a primary school setting, with Reception and KS1 pupils using it as a basis for discussions.
Children in KS1 were able to become aware with some of the issues inherent in using the internet from this vides, and it acted as an effective foundation to build safe practise on too.
The accompanying website (http://www.childnet.com/resources ) is full of printable resources to use to help provide a continuous provision. Examples of these include the poster below.
KidSMART Poster.pdf
Childnet champion their SMART ruleset, and are part of a group of charities that sponsor 'Safer Internet Day' (9th February 2016) - a celebration and awareness-raising exercise.
In addition to Childnet, Click CEOP (https://www.ceop.police.uk/), a police produced E-safety organisation, created a campaign focused around the following video, which details the effects of sharing personal information online.
Cyberbullying
Children in our modern society are constantly connected to the internet, with social media, text messaging and the like fuelling a highly communictive society. Like our use of communication, bullying has evolved to make use of the newly available technologies.
Children can be sent messages, images and harassed in other means by characters online both known and unknown. This kind of bullying has been considered to be much more detrimental to children's mental health as a result of its constant and ubiquitous nature thanks to our societies' connectivity.
Subsequently, children have to be warned about the potential for this kind of bullying to happen and how to appropriately deal with its occurrence.
By using the childline and bullying.co.uk websites, I was able to find some resources and webpages to help children be informed about the nature of cyberbullying and methods used to deal with it.
Computing Pledge
As part of course requirements and proper working practice as students, we are required to have signed the following Computing Pledge which has E-safety for children at its heart:
1. To adhere to national and school policies regarding child protection and online safety.
2. To adhere to the national CEOP guidelines see http://www.ceop.police.uk/ and thinkuknow.co.uk
3. Not to make images of learners, students, school or University staff without permission from the school in the case of pupils or the individual in the case of adults.
4.Not to publish, circulate or use for course or none course related purposes any image or information about a child or professional practitioner encountered as part of the PGCE programme without permission.
5.Not to expose pupils to inappropriate materials or details which would allow them access such materials.
6.To always anonymise material included in course related tasks and assignments.
7.Not to give learners any details of personal telephone numbers, Email accounts or access to social networking accounts.
8.Not to engage with learners encountered on the primary PGCE within any form of social networking.
9.To report to an appropriate authority any suspicious or suspected activity encountered which might be considered to be bullying, grooming of a young person or a threat to young person.
10.To act to discourage and if encountered report any form of cyberbullying.
11.To promote ESafety and responsible use of Computing and web based resources so as to enable young people to interact at an appropriate level.
12. If a school requires you to support homework by Email set up a separate ‘professional account’ for this purpose.
13. If you load sensitive pupil data onto your laptop please ensure that it is encrypted www.truecrypt.org
14. My showcase website will be my own work and will accurately reflect my personal capability in Computing.