Blog – Latest stories tagged 'e-safety'

As the widely known proverb has it:

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”

In education, we understand this as the importance of first principles. It is not enough to teach someone that the square root of 25 is 5, the student needs to understand how to calculate this, so that when they meet a similar problem they are equipped to tackle it. Otherwise, the only square root problem they can ever tackle is the square root of 25.

The same is true for all subjects. Whether the mission is to construct meaningful sentences, critique the motivations of monarchs, handle chemical compounds or understand migration patterns, the key is to master the first principles and learn the tools of the trade.

When it comes to e-safety we have a problem! Very few people have any first principle knowledge of information technology and this makes it difficult for them to understand, let alone communicate the risks.

There was a very narrow window in which any kind of ‘computing’ was covered at school as a core skill. The basics of programming and the foundation knowledge that required quickly gave way to an emphasis on using computers or more accurately, specific applications. The new computing curriculum and initiatives such as code clubs are addressing this thankfully, but the current reality is that we have several generations of teachers and parents with little or no understanding of first principles.

This is hardly surprising, the rapid evolution of communications technology has for many resulted in it seemingly arriving fully formed and thus much education has been about computer literacy and orienting people in order to use the technology in its present state, with seldom any reference to the first principles.

There is a tendency to look upon e-safety as a technical issue, and devolve responsibility to and ICT teacher or network manager, but while there is a technical and engineering component in the security and capability management of systems, so much of e-safety is about practice and social interaction. Thinking that e-safety is purely the preserve of the ICT department because it concerns computing devices is as muddle headed as assuming that a carpenter be given responsibility for all pencils because they are made of wood. Information technology is subject agnostic. All school staff need to be involved.

There are of course some very good technologies which help mitigate risk, such as those which filter and monitor network traffic, but alas these can never be 100% effective and are far from universally adopted, often leading to a false sense of security.

Good e-safety education needs to work hand in hand with technical solutions and good practice and procedure to deliver a fully rounded solution. The technical solutions will always trail the risks as new technologies, usage patterns and social practice evolve.

E-safety in school in not just about protecting students while at school, it is about giving them the skills to continue to be safe outside of school and into the future.

Good first principle knowledge is essential in order to understand the nature of a risk and recognise it in another form as they encounter technologies that haven’t even been invented yet.

In subsequent weeks we’ll be using our blog to briefly examine some first principles and core concepts that we hope will lead to a better understanding of information technology and its usage, in order to help you with your e-safety teaching and practice.

Safer Internet Day 2015 will be celebrated globally on Tuesday 10th February with the theme ‘Let’s create a better internet together’.

Coordinated in the UK by the UK Safer Internet Centre the celebration sees hundreds of organisations get involved to help promote the safe, responsible and positive use of digital technology for children and young people. For SID2014, over 650 organisations got involved, reaching 25% of children and 18% of teenagers.

The UK Safer Internet Centre – a partnership of three leading charities; Childnet, the South West Grid for Learning and the Internet Watch Foundation – provide resources for children, schools and families, and tools for getting involved at www.saferinternet.org.uk.

Globally, Safer Internet Day is celebrated in over a hundred countries, coordinated by the joint Insafe/INHOPE network, with the support of the European Commission, and 31 national Safer Internet Centres across Europe.

The day offers the opportunity to highlight positive uses of technology and to explore the role we all play in helping to create a better and safer online community. It calls upon young people, parents, carers, teachers, social workers, law enforcement, companies, policymakers, and wider, to join together in helping to create a better internet. Ultimately, a better internet is up to us!

Last year an unprecedented number of organisations got involved in the day! Hopefully, you will find it hard to avoid hearing a mention of Safer Internet Day before or on the actual day!

Safer Internet Day TV will be presented by CBBC Friday Download stars Molly and Harvey, this will stream live on 10th February at 11am, 2pm and 7pm. It will be available to watch at www.saferinternetdaytv.com and www.youtube.com/UKSIC, the programme will feature advice and practical information from experts and providers such as Facebook, Google and Twitter on internet safety and issues from cyberbullying to reporting and privacy, as well as messages of support from lots of well-known faces!

3 Ways to get involved

1) Promote the day using #SID2015

The official hashtag is #SID2015 and it would be great if you could post messages of support on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc.

2) Thunderclap

Help reach millions on social media on the morning of Safer Internet Day and kickstart a day of trending!

Simply sign up to the Thunderclap with your social media accounts, then on the morning of Safer Internet Day your accounts will automatically send out the Safer Internet Day message, along with hundreds of organisations and individuals.

3) Share a smile

“Share a smile” this Safer Internet Day – whether that’s a smiley emoticon or smiley selfie! We want to create a wave of positivity online this Safer Internet Day, and we hope we’ll get lots of people sharing positive messages. It would be great if you could get involved with this!


Don't forget, all E-safety Support members can download an assembly introducing Safer Internet Day from your dashboard.

The rise of communications technology has been fast. For many it arrived fully formed and e-safety is often an attempt to retro fit conventions after the fact. We can not put the genie back into the lamp and it is pointless to stick an Elastoplast over the spout, so somehow we need our understanding to catch-up with reality.

We are delighted to announce that we will be discussing this issue when we speak at Bett next week.

We have joined up with Exa Education - the UK's leading independent Internet Service Provider to schools, who are hosting a number of presentations on their stand. With seminars ranging from need-to-know e-safety advice to teaching computing in 2015, there's something for everyone!

In the E-safety Support presentation, we will illustrate three basic principles underpinning Internet technology and its usage which will equip you to not only understand e-safety today, but also to continue to understand it as the technology evolves.

Be sure to come along to stand B228 at 4pm on Wednesday 21st or 12 noon on Thursday 22nd to hear the presentation.

For those not able to attend Bett, we will be featuring the full presentation in a blog soon.

A timetable of the Exa seminars can be found on their Facebook page.

If you would like to meet a member of the E-safety Support team at Bett, please get in touch using the comments section below.