Student and Teacher Motivation Guideline – The Best Ten Online Safety TIPS you can use in the Classroom!
A teacher’s job is sometimes more difficult than a parent’s. With so many children to look after and teach, supervising their online activity is often difficult. These ten tips will make your job easier and your students safer.
1 Talk to your students about computers and the internet. Ask them about what they like about their favorite websites. Some children are uncomfortable talking to their parents for whatever reason about anything. As another adult in their life, you can help those children talk and learn that conversation with a trusted adult is nothing to fear.
2 Have any computer in your classroom facing towards the middle of the room. This may not be feasible for computer labs or larger classes where students need to be facing forward and at a computer at the same time but can be done in home room or other classes. This keeps any inappropriate activity on the computer to minimum since the child knows that you’re more likely to see what they’re doing.
3 Practice setting up user accounts on sites like National Geographic for Kids and Disney. Have your students come up with fun user names that don’t use their name, birthday or any other personal information. Help them understand the importance of keeping their user names and passwords private and only sharing that info with their parents or a teacher. that may or may not make sense. Help them understand what it means for something to be copyrighted and what they can and cannot do with that material. Tell them that if they want to download stuff from the internet, it can sometimes have “viruses” that will make the computer sick and could steal their personal info, putting them and their family at risk.
4 Students learn their address or phone number early on to help them protect themselves and get home if anything were to happen. This unfortunately backfires with the internet. Sharing this info is safe when it’s a policeman or teacher but is very dangerous online. Stress how important it is that they never ever tell anyone their personal information when they’re using the internet, including names, phone numbers, where they go to school, who their friends are or any information about family members.
5 The concept of right and wrong sometimes gets fuzzy when sitting in front of a computer. Talk about the importance of remembering the rules when online. Stress that while it’s not hitting someone or cheating on a test, certain behaviors are wrong and can hurt people. This can also help a child realize that if an adult is talking to them online, it doesn’t make certain remarks ok. If they feel someone is trying to hurt them or make them uncomfortable, even if they can’t see them, it’s still wrong.
6 Respect is what separates an unruly classroom from a content group of students. Building on the discussion of right and wrong online, talk about respect on the internet and how it’s important to remember that the people you talk to online deserve the same respect as people in real life. If the people they’re interacting with aren’t giving them respect, they can walk away and tell an adult - just like in real life.
7 Copyright infringement is a big concept for young people. A teacher’s job is sometimes more difficult than a parent’s. With so many children to look after and teach, supervising their online activity is often difficult. These ten tips will make your job easier and your students safer.
8 Kids are always excited to make a new friend. Online friends can feel like best friends very quickly due to the nature of the relationship being purely conversational and anonymous. You can get to know someone pretty quickly when all you do is talk. But it’s never a good idea for a child to meet these friends. It’s all too easy for a predator to create an innocent persona to find victims. If you overhear a student saying they’re going to meet someone from an online chat, please intervene. The student won’t like it but you’re keeping them safe.
9 It’s easy to be mislead with all the information and people on the internet. Tell your students that they can talk to you about anything that may confuse them online. If they know they can talk to an adult other than their parents, they may be more candid. You can then find out if they’re straying into dangerous ground as they surf the net.
10 Parental controls and software and firewalls are all important parts of making sure a school’s computers are kid friendly. If your school doesn’t have these things in place, talk to the administration about getting an IT professional to install these protective measures.
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