Working with the Web

Cybersafe Classroom

Cybersafety and ethics

Cybersafety and ethics need to be explicitly taught as part of school curriculum. Cybersafety refers to the ways students keep both themselves and their friends safe on the internet.

Students are now producers of web content on sites like MySpace and Facebook. Much of that occurs outside the school environment. However schools still have a responsibility to address the underlying values (ethics) and responsible behaviours expected of students.

It is recommended that when dealing with or teaching cybersafety or ethical behaviours that it is helpful to take the 'technology' out of the incident to actually help identify the behaviours which are occurring.

Dangers can include:

  • bullying or harassment (cyberbullying)
  • accessing inappropriate content
  • contact with strangers
  • posting private information
  • using (or stealing) content owned by others eg images, music or videos
  • plagiarising: taking ideas or information created/ owned by others without referencing their origin
  • not using critical thinking skills when using the internet
  • not seeking support offline when there is an issue.
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Ten tips for teachers

The internet can open up the world through multimedia, creative tools, global connections and experts in a host of topics. The resources seem endless. Some of these can support curriculum and learning - others may not. The web can allow students to research, collaborate and create but it is essential to plan and understand the potential of this resource.

These top 10 are a starting point for teachers using the internet in their classrooms:

1. Outline your expectations of students to use the internet safely and ethically.

  • Understand any potential risks that a session may present and support students to navigate or respond by reporting, closing the screen etc.
  • Understand the legal issues around downloading pictures or music. Where can you get access to free resources creative commons? (http://search.creativecommons.org)
  • Understand that the information that students post online is potentially there forever. Get them to protect their privacy and that of their friends.

2. Understand how the internet works in your school.

  • How do you include or block a site?
  • Do students have email accounts? (They will need one to use web 2.0 technologies)
  • How is the internet paid for? What is the download cost of multimedia rich resources? Who pays?
  • Understand and check the access of student accounts. What can they access at school? It may be different to the access you had at home planning the session.

3. Plan how the internet will be used as part of the topic/lesson.

  • Consider all of the Interdisciplinary domains when using the internet and selecting resources and approaches. The internet can support all subject areas.
  • Use open ended questions. Encourage students to use online resources to create, communicate, collaborate and think. The internet should not be used as an add on at the end.

4. Set tasks which can’t be copied and pasted.

  • Plagiarism is alive and well in internet use. Open ended questions which can not simply copied and pasted are a proactive way of addressing this.  For ideas on planning look at some webquests which structure and scaffold learning using the internet. They cover all subject areas, see Web Quests (http://www.bestwebquests.com)

5. Give direction and focus to any searches or use that students have with the internet.

  • Give the internet use in the lesson a real purpose. Undirected or poorly focused web searches can often lead students into areas they did not intend to go and waste valuable lesson time.

6. Supervise all of the screens that students can have open.

  • Carefully supervise any web 2.0 activities. The ability to publish straight to the internet presents real risks.
  • You may wish to set up a personal or class account for sites such as VoiceThread (http://voicethread.com) so you are able to easily moderate content to be uploaded to the site, rather than allowing students to create their own account.
  • If your students each have a blog you must be an administrator of that account. This will allow you to remove or change any content if you need to.

7. Check for plugins:

  • Plugins are small pieces of software that are needed to make the multimedia of the internet work. Without them installed on each computer music won’t play, films won’t show and games won’t work.

8. Understand that every member of the school community is responsible.

  • The whole community is responsible for keeping students safe on the internet and educating them to be safe and responsible users of the internet anywhere, anytime.

9. When dealing with any issues of cyberbullying or inappropriate behaviours, always put the technology to the background.

  • It is the behaviour and the wellbeing of students which is the issue. This requires support and discussion to resolve. Students must know where they can seek support.
  • Technology can help block access or harassment but the issue is always the behaviour.

10. Have a backup.

  • If you are using the internet, chances are that it will fail at some time. Your school network can be used to store copies of any web resources.
  • Create a folder at the time of planning. You could also use this time for students to create for the web. Digital stories can be drawn and included into iMovie or PhotoStory (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/digitalphotography). Content for posting to a wiki could be created using Word and moved to the wiki when appropriate.