Blog – Latest stories tagged 'e-safety'

As technology advances at a dizzyingly rapid pace, its ubiquitous nature can’t help but influence and impact on young people’s lives; however, being part of the digital generation, they have an inherent ability to engage with and embrace new innovations with fervour.

And here lies the problem.

The intrigue and excitement of discovering and being part of a new digital innovation, whether it be a new computer game or social networking website, blinds the child to the possibility that there may be issues or dangers associated with their participation in the new application. Traditionally, it has been the parents or carers of young people who have been the steadying voice of guidance, to take care riding a bicycle on the road or climbing a tall tree; however, with online attractions some parents find it virtually impossible to keep up with and understand the latest game or website their offspring is ‘hooked up’ to and therefore lack the awareness of the very real risks and dangers that their child could be exposing themselves to.

Some parents may feel that, because they happen to use sites such as social media they are fully aware of the dangers; however they may act misguidedly, like the mother in Colorado who, in refusing her daughter’s pestering to be allowed to use social media, used an image of her to demonstrate how quickly something can go viral online. Unfortunately, the stunt back-fired and resulted in the mother receiving abuse, along with messages criticising her for using the image of her daughter as an experiment to prove her point.

Schools, local area learning grid organisations and other educational websites have begun to recognise the problems that parents face with regard to this issue and are steadily putting a variety of measures in place with a view to informing and assisting parents in keeping their children safe online. These measures focus on a broad range of issues such as:

There are a number of resources available from E-safety Support that schools can use to boost their communications with parents and therefore provide information and assistance in understanding about social media and new technologies. Resources include online e-safety training for parents.

In this day and age, it is no longer acceptable for parents to plead ignorance and to simply allow their children to disappear into their bedrooms with their computer, Smartphone or tablet and hope or assume that they are not engaged in any online activity that is either inappropriate or potentially putting themselves or others in danger. In the same way that parents have traditionally guided children in physical world, it is now their responsibility to educate themselves and raise their own awareness regarding the issues and dangers of the virtual world and demonstrate vigilance and provide guidance to their children regarding their online activity and behaviour.

If you have any hints or tips on how to help parents navigate e-safety issues and would like to share them with other teachers, please let us know by using the comments section below.

This is the fourth and final of a series of articles looking at the demands of the Ofsted’s e-safety framework first published to inspectors in September 2012. The document has since seen a number of amendments, the latest of which was in April 2014.

In the last post, we focused at two areas of the framework policy document; Policies and Education. In this last blog we are going to look at the final two areas for consideration, those being Infrastructure and Monitoring & Evaluation.

Infrastructure

This part of the Ofsted e-safety framework concentrates on the aspects concerning the facilities, duties and responsibilities with regard to the school’s IT infrastructure.

In order to demonstrate good or outstanding practice with regard to e-safety, Ofsted will be looking to see if the school’s IT infrastructure meets a number of requirements:

- Schools should have in place a web traffic monitoring tool such as the one supplied by SWGfL
- It is advisable that a school should analyse their web traffic at the very least once a month, preferably more often.

When considering whether a site should be unfiltered, a number of questions should be asked of the web site:
1. Are there clear reasons, associated with the school curriculum, for the site to become unfiltered?
2. Is there any contentious content contained within the website?
3. When logging on to the site, do users have to register?
4. If, by allowing access, it could appear that the school is endorsing the site, does this create any problems?
5. Are there any age-restrictions stated on the web site?
6. If it is a site where students could upload content to it, what is the situation with regard to ownership of such material?
7. If students can upload content to it, who can view the material?
8. Are there any facilities for social-networking on the site that allows users to communicate?
9. If this is a site is unfiltered so that students could use it outside of school hours, are there any issues with unsupervised access?
10. Is there any evidence or content to suggest that the website has been created by a reliable organisation?

When checking sites, it is doubtful that all the questions above would be answered positively and so schools would have to employ their own judgement as to whether the benefits of using the site outweigh any issues.

Monitoring and Evaluation

This section of the Ofsted framework focuses on how e-safety in the school is formally and professionally monitored and evaluated. With regard to good or outstanding practice, Ofsted is looking for certain aspects to be demonstrated:

- An example of this could be in the context of social networking, where the risk is foreseen that some situation could occur identified and a process put in place to alleviate it.
- The use of monitoring software can help identify potential e-safety risks.

- There is a common misconception that the stories in the media of students getting into problematic situations when using technology won’t occur in our schools, unfortunately this is just a case of ‘burying our heads in the sand’. Good or outstanding practice demands that risk should to be comprehensively identified by schools and mitigation processes implemented (if it can be) to deal with it.
- All risk assessment and mitigation processes should be immersed in policy, it is suggested that there should be documented evidence of this, for example it could be recorded that risk assessment drove the identification of training requirements, the need for formal reporting procedures or a guidance document for the acceptable use of social networks. (There are resources available across E-safety Support to help support these outcomes)

- It is suggested that any school should have a formal reflective process which is recorded, for example documented records of any issue that has occurred in school, whether the relevant policies and procedures were effective and whether they needed updating or modifying. Did the issue identify a need for additional staff training in the area concerned etc.

This was the final article in the Interpreting Ofsted series. If you would like to add your comments or suggestions to help other schools, please use the comments section below.

Michael Gove has done it recently, As has David Camreron and Barack Obama...(courting controversy in its wake too)...we're talking 'Selfies' and a staggering 91% of teens are doing it.

Along with the growing trend, there are accompanying Apps which play up to our insecurities and perpetuate the concept that we need to project the perfect image to the world. The Apps that are most worrying are 'Skinnee pix' and Snapchat.

Skinnee pix is the most worrying app in terms of young people as it’s designed to shed up to 15 lbs off your image. Justifying the app, the makers claim that photos add an average of 15 lbs to the average person and they are simply just taking away what photos add. However, it's still encouraging teens to see and be curious about what they would look like 'if only' they could lose a stone in weight. Moreover is it reinforcing users to sink deeper into narcissism? After all, it's been proven that women and young girls post more Selfies than males, does this prove that females base their self worth on how attractive they are, opposed to intelligence, personality and skills?

Snapchat is another growing app, being used by 24% of 8 year olds. This is a service where you send photos and a short message to a recipient and it will only exist for 10 seconds before disappearing into the cyber abyss. The very concept of this being temporary could be argued that it encourages users to be more risqué or push boundaries further as it won't be a permanent record of peoples online behaviour. It also could make cyber bullying far more difficult to prove or track, appealing to young people out there who are tempted to send things for a 'joke' when it is anything but for the recipient.

Lastly, on the subject of Selfies...if heads of state are able to make errors in judgement about the appropriacy of taking and sharing their Selfies (Nelson Mandela's memorial) then expect our young people to sometimes get it wrong too.

Good advice to give to young people about selfies

- Employers can and will check online profiles...always be mindful that photos are a true representation of you as a person. They should depict you in a positive light, incorporating interests and hobbies, loved ones and positive aspects of your life other than the stereotypical 'duck face' pouts and buffed up shots. Think- how do I want a stranger to perceive me?

- Pictures can tell a thousand lies, as the saying goes...online pics are not and should not be a substitute for the real relationships. Don't hide behind your online profile. Meet people and communicate face to face to build confidence and network!

- Reflect on your need to post a lot of Selfies, ask yourself 'what is my aim?' what do I want to get out of this? ...maybe you need to fulfil yourself in other ways to gain confidence. Think about what maybe lacking in your life?

- Don't base comments and likes on your self worth and popularity ...you have other qualities other than your looks. It means so much more to get a pat on the back for something you have achieved other than what you were born with.

If you would like to add your thoughts on this topic, please use the comments section below. You may also be interested in the 'Selfies' lesson plan available to E-safety Support Premium and Premium Plus members