ESafety is a particular concern in the 21st century.
Whilst some malign social media and its attendant dangers, it is important children are taught safe internet behaviour, instead of being told to stay off it! We know the potential of blogs in both Primary and Secondary school, yet must be vigilant in keeping children safe.
Each of our class blogs has an ESafety page and teachers and children alike are well aware of the importance of esafety. There are lots of great Esafety resources out there such as Stories from the Web and ThinkUKnow.co.uk
In primary schools, the main esafety focus need to be:
- Keeping personal details off blogs
(No surnames, children's names cannot be identified from pictures)
After some training, children are particularly aware in this regard, and have often reminded staff / parents to follow the rules!
- Making sure comments are moderated (come via a teacher first to avoid inappropriate comments)
This is usually a case of setting up the blog so that Comments require prior approval before going live.
In school, we have used assemblies to emphasise the importance of keeping ourselves safe online. Below are a couple of assembly slides we used: