The most significant online dangers for our students fall under three main areas:
(1) Cyber bullying - Cyber bullying behaviours include, but are not limited to, online threats, insults and any other malicious behaviour. It can occur in social networking sites, IM, email, chat, Twitter and has the potential to be posted on wikis and blogs. It is important to note that one-off nasty messages are not classified as cyber bullying as the definition requires repeated hostile behaviour. A useful definition of cyber bullying was given at out Cybersafety lecture by ACMA. It defines cyber bullying as, 'when the internet, email or mobile phones are used to deliberately and repeatedly engage in hostile behaviour to harm someone'. ACMA also goes onto state that, 'those involved in cyber bullying can experience social, psychological and academic difficulties'.
(2) Cyber pornography or other inappropriate content - the latter is dependent upon the age of the student however, sites containing guns, drugs, pro-anorexia and hate sites fall within this category.
(3) Cyber predation - this refers to people on the internet who befriend and gather personal information about the child to be used with harmful financial or bodily intent. I found this newspaper article on cyber predators which you may like to take a look at - ABC Cyber Predator Story
2. How do schools deal with such dangers?
There are many strategies schools can employ to limit students exposure to such online dangers as mentioned above. First of all we can take screen shots rather than go live on the internet where we may be subjected to a popups and inappropriate advertising. Secondly we, as educators, can use a filtering system to block out inappropriate websites or undesirable websites such as FB and MySpace. Most schools have an ICT usage policy that is delivered to the stduents and parents alike and signed off on as a contract. I think this type of safeguard is probably more effective in limiting the school's liability than truly protecting children from online dangers. However if the policy is read and explained to the children at school and then co-signed by parents, I believe such policies can go a long way in beginning the process of establishing positive Cyber Citizenship.
3. What classroom strategies might you use to help educate students about the dangers?
I think awareness os the key. Teachers need to ensure children know what is safe and conversely what equates to unsafe behaviour (such as sharing their details with unknown 'friends'). Establishing a set of 'Positive Cyber Citizen Rules' in each classroom would be a beneficial strategy. Additionally, websites such as ThatsNotCool.com are great for gearing poignant messages to the target age group (young people) in a meaningful yet non-offensive way. See below for an example:
The clips above and below would be very useful to raise awareness of cyber dangers and how to manage such dangers for lower primary students. I think it is important to reiterate to students that the Web can be a dangerous place BUT if the right safeguards and cyber citizenship behaviours are implemented, the Web becomes what it was supposed to be - a collaborative online world where we can access, share and create audio, visual, text, images to better our own lives.
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