In class this week we had a guest speaker. Jesse Miller came to speak to us about internet safety in schools. What stood out to me is how much the topic of internet safety has changed since I was in school. My first interaction with an internet safety lesson was when I was in sixth grade. At this time some of my classmates were experimenting with social medias such as chat rooms. Our internet safety lesson came as a stack of graphic novels the teacher handed out. There was not a lot of instruction from the teacher, which made sense as internet safety was a new topic and he likely had never been asked to teach it before. After that year it felt like social media exploded. What went from a few people using chatrooms, turned into a whole new culture where everyone had an account. We were all exploring the new voice we had online and our internet safety graphic novels grew dusty in our closets. Even if we were looking at them they did not prepare us for the rollercoaster that was the years ahead. Cyberbullying, credible and uncredible sources, and consent for posting pictures online, were all relatively new things to talk about. The social media boom happened when I was in middle school. However, today these issues need to be talked about in elementary schools. Today I want to focus my reflection on teaching internet safety to primary school students.
Why is internet safety important from a young age?
Gone are the days of the computer room. What I mean by that is families today are less likely to share a single computer and more likely to have multiple computers some in the form of phones in their household. The influence that the internet has on the lives of children can no longer be contained to one room in a house. Children see it everywhere and they have questions. They may be seeing their parents buy things and sell things online, they may have parents who met through an app, they may have family members who create content for a living. They could even be online themselves. Many students play online video games. These are not typically thought of as social media, but children can still experience cyberbullying though video games. Internet safety is important for young students because we need to prepare them for the digital world and because it is something they are curious about.
How do you teach internet safety to young kids?
Primary school students are naturally curious about the online world. Many resources exist to educated children on safety and digital literacy. Here is an example of a lesson for a grade one class. This lesson plan goes over the role of technology, digital literacy skills, and the importance of keeping personal information private.
