Teaching Students Online Safety

Who's responsibility is it to teach students to be safe online?

To teach students to be safe online we need to make them aware of the importance of principles of community at our school.  Administrators and teachers at ISB recognize that they have a responsibility for the safety of their students and that safe guidelines when using the Internet are followed. To make sure that at home parents know how to share this responsible role and keep track of their kids’ online behavior we all need to be educated in this.  For our final CoeTail project I worked in a small group to create an AUP for our Middle School division level. One of our responsibilities definitely includes netiquette and cyber-bullying.

What is cyberbullying, exactly?  Cyberbullying is when a child, preteen or teen is tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted by another child, preteen or teen using the Internet, interactive and digital technologies or mobile phones. It has to have a minor on both sides, or at least have been instigated by a minor against another minor. Once adults become involved, it is plain and simple cyber-harassment or cyberstalking. Adult cyber-harassment or cyberstalking is NEVER called cyberbullying

Many students do not realize that some of their activities, done without thought, can be considered cyber-bullying. Defining online bullying as part of the AUP and having a published procedure for students to follow whenever they feel that they are being bullied will send the message that such activities are not acceptable and will be addressed by those in authority. Knowing what their rights are and how to respond can keep some students from becoming easy targets. Electronic bullying is more problematic since the source can be difficult or impossible to find. Rules in the AUP make it possible for schools to take action whenever it is needed?

We encourage students to use technology that connects them to people electronically and when parents make computers or text messaging available to their children, they have the same responsibility. If they send their child to a school that makes use these media, they have the same responsibility. Parents also have a responsibility to attempt to monitor their children's online behavior, just as they would with their real-world actions.

Most importantly, education about media behavior needs to be an ongoing aspect of students' lives. At school it cannot be confined to a single class or meeting. At home, parents cannot expect that one conversation will be sufficient. We would not expect a one-off conversation to be enough to teach students about sharing or listening to others. Once our school’s AUP becomes clear to us educators we will have an important tool to teach online behavior more effectively.