Creating online savvy children

Eric Schmidt, Google’s executive chairman, recently said there are only two states for our children today: ‘asleep or online’. A recent BCS roundtable discussion on e-safety training in schools addressed the implications of this. The debate was chaired by Brian Runciman, editorial publisher at the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT. The panel included David Miles, director of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI); The United Learning Trust’s James Garnett; Alan Earl, harm reduction officer at Avon and Somerset Constabulary, on secondment to the South West Grid for Learning; and Jeremy Barlow from the BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT.

Parents, teachers and pupils know the ‘stranger danger’ approach for helping children deal with people they don’t know, but they need to be similarly savvy in the online environment. Meanwhile schools need to be sure they are doing the right thing, as Ofsted requires them to verify that they are managing these risks and teaching the relevant skills.

Responsibilities
The BCS debate began with a look at how we can teach young people about safety in the virtual world.  

Earl started the debate with: “The internet is a powerful tool. You wouldn’t send someone who came into a school with a knife to the design technology department, but with internet issues, people usually get directed to the IT department – and the issue is bigger than that.”

There is a permanency to what our children post online and parents are not always well equipped to address online safety issues, especially as they can be time-poor.

“As to the division of responsibilities,” Garnett commented. “They are across the board. Educators can raise issues, but children don’t always take this on board. We have a duty to educate the teachers as well. In one of our schools over half the teachers didn’t use social networks.”

“FOSI represents 30 of the largest social providers in the world,” said Miles. “We need to recognise that these are often innovative technologies, so there will be disruption to social norms. One of the ways we frame that, because it’s a global phenomenon, is that we talk of digital citizenship – bringing social responsibility of the real world into the online world. This includes the role of government and law enforcement. It’s a real challenge, but all those stakeholders have a duty to work together.”

Earl believes that there is a very important role to be played by parents. He said: “We’ve dealt with 7,000 parents and we find there is still a lack of dialogue between parents and children. Children aren’t challenged about how they behave online by their parents. They need to speak together.”

Behaviour on social networks
The EU Kids Online report said that 59 per cent of 9-16 year olds have social networking sites (and 49 per cent of 11 to 12 year olds) and of those, 26 per cent have public profiles so that anyone can see their personal information.

This indicates that the perception of privacy is changing, so how should that affect our approach as a society?

Miles said: “A lot of children go online technically underage, and parents are complicit because they want their children in the online world, to talk to relatives. There’s an education process there. Facebook has updated its privacy settings to reflect changing views, which is an ongoing process. The notion of privacy is changing, and youngsters have a different perception of offline and online friends.”

Earl said: “The way children view privacy is changing the way adults view it too. It’s difficult to simplify privacy policies, so talking to kids about it is vital. It’s about education.”

Meanwhile Garnett commented: “How children manage their online social brand is important;  children have to think  about what may be available about them when they come to look for jobs. Universities and future employers can easily find this information today. There is a large growth in acceptable youth policies recently – should a teacher friend a pupil and so on – the scope is large.”

Privacy settings
Social networking is based on sharing and being open – so expecting sites to automatically set privacy at the highest level is unlikely and in many ways going against the philosophy of the idea. It’s also not just about Facebook. There’s also Twitter, uploading photos to Flickr and so on. Even iTunes has an age limit of 13.

So how rigorously should we enforce age limits on social networks?

Miles said: “There are 194 countries in the world and they all have differing legislation. Over the last few years it’s changed. Five years ago there was a fixed PC, in a public room, but now networking is on games consoles, phones, and so on. At school age there has to be a conversation between the parents and children about this. At that point you can share in the positives and find out how children use technology and celebrate their creativity. Then discuss, secondarily, risks and security at a level relevant to their age.”

Risk management
A 2011 OFCOM survey highlights that 33 per cent of 12-15 yr olds speak to friends of friends or people they do not know online. So what can teachers and parents do to improve children’s understanding of the risks?

“Talk to them,” says Garnett. “In the Byron review, it mentioned the concern that children are being taken away from risk. Ask about apps and be aware of the changing technology; don’t be afraid to appear to be behind the curve when speaking to your children.”

Barlow said: “The language we use is important. The very term ‘risk management’ has fear culture connotations. We want to enrich the online experience, remove the fear and use the right language that children will understand and identify with.”

“It’s like we are in an aeroplane,” says Earl, “but the children are flying it. We need to go into the cockpit and ask them what they are doing. It’s my belief that it’s the child we need to educate the most – help them understand risk, but parents are very important too.”

Miles added: “It’s about rules, tools and resilience in the online world. Parents do the rules and tools; children should work out the resilience. Parents are catching up, the playing field is levelling.”

Where next?
Garnett said: “The new BCS e-safety qualification is an easy way to get the right information across to students. With it a school can frame their curriculum around a recognised qualification so it can satisfy a school inspectorate and prove that it has begun on the right path to ensuring safety online for our students.”

“I’d like to reiterate,” urged Miles, “that in the longer term we have to recognise the child/parent conversation. Governors’ bodies and parents associations have a role. There is a generational transition going on. There are challenges, but I think we are now coming through the worst of it. In the next 10 years we are going to see real benefits from that.”

Earl added: “The internet is such a great environment, so it’s really important that e-safety is part of school curriculum.”

“We also need to understand that the area is evolving with new platforms and emerging technologies,” says Barlow. “Ofcom suggest 35 per cent of 15-year-olds have smartphones. I’d like to quote a piece from The Guardian by Stephen Carrick-Davies, 19 July 2011: ‘A new three Rs of literacy would help us to understand the risks, better manage online reputations and together build resilience to cope with the contradictions and opportunities of the online world.’ I think that’s a good summation.”

Miles concluded: “E-safety is a set of life skills. Some countries talk about digital wellbeing. We need to look at this as a lifestyle health issue rather than a tech issue.”

Written by Brian Runciman

The BCS e-safety qualification
BCS has launched e-safety a Level 1 qualification that maps to parts of the National Curriculum for PSHCE - Personal Wellbeing, Citizenship, ICT and Every Child Matters. It aims to help teachers raise the issue of online safety with their students and covers the potential risks associated with being online, how to protect yourself and your personal information online, as well as how to behave responsibly and within the law whilst using the internet.

For more information
www.bcs.org/esafety