What should be done to help students stay safe while being online?

We spend a lot of time on the internet doing multiple of online tasks from searching new information, making presentations and school projects, virtual classes and meetings, checking trending videos, playing online games, to simple chatting and sending pictures to friends. Billions of people use the internet and not all of them are aware of problems that may arise while doing so. Kids and teen are much more likely to be subjected to hackers or even verbal or physical harassment and bullying while being online. Here are some tips that we should teach students at such ages to avoid falling into such problems.

The first thing that students should know about internet safety is that whatever posted on the internet will stay there forever! Your grandchildren will be able at some stage to read your posts and thoughts! So, when dealing with social media, it is necessary to follow up with the privacy terms they apply.

The second thing to be taken into consideration is to avoid putting lots of personal information out there and only share what is required with friends. If not, then this causes the accounts to be subjected to attackers and hackers who would take advantage of you.

A third thing is to not forget about smart phone's safety. Cyber safety should extend to your phones as well when it comes to text safety the same way our parents used to tell us to never accept any candies or gifts or even respond to strangers. So, they should be taught to not answer texts or cell phones from strange or unknown numbers. They should also know to stop communicating with someone who doesn't make them feel comfortable and never be afraid or shy to speak outload with their parents, school councillors, teachers, or other trusted adults about any out-of-normal incidents like bullying, verbal or sexual harassment. Moreover, they shall not meet in person with someone they have already known online unless they take a friend with them a sit in public places.

Now, being a part of the worldwide web, one should know how to handle hackers in an intelligent way and this would be the fourth thing to be taken into account. A bunch of things can be done relating to the previously mentioned idea. One should know very well that no mater how careful you might be, still your accounts can get hacked! To ensure safety, one can simply change the account's password when it gets hacked and make a new stronger and unpredictable one. In addition, there is always the option of using the two-step verification or using many emails to protect your account. One can also tell friends to report or block hacked accounts, use software to detect viruses, and most importantly to back up important files so that they would never be lost.

The internet can be a wonderful world to explore but one should always make sure how to stay safe and teach students how to properly act while surfing it.

Empowering teachers and students with digital citizenship!

Social media has brought a lot of negative impacts on their users in one way or another. Research have shown that people are being subjected to higher risks of bullying and harassment on online platforms. To avoid such incidences, and to protect ourselves and our students from them, it is important to explore the notion of digital citizenship.

So, digital citizenship is a term that describes how should a person act while using technology and hence the ability to participate and get involved in the society online. It is a term that is directly related to internet safety and etiquette of acting when we are on the internet.

Technology is embedded in our homes and is allowing us to cross over boundaries in our personal life, work, and society. Not only it has became a part of our homes but rather a part of our schools as well. As educators, technology has became a concern as we spend a significant amount of time while working with it. Here, a part of our role is to teach students how to conduct themselves while using technology and how to deal with the fear of letting strangers enter our life via online platforms.

Students use the internet at various ages and for many purposes including gaming, watching YouTube, communicating with others, visiting pages for news, sports, social activities, and educational purposes. Teaching safety practices and good behaviours are also a part of our responsibilities because we do all want to create a digital footprint that will make others happy to see.

Here are some tips to be used by teachers as models for digital citizenship:

The teacher must know the proper use of the sites he/she is using and the purposes behind using these sites.
As teachers, we must utilize technology for the development of our students.
Upon using some materials from the internet, teachers must know how to give credits for the sources used.
Teachers must be ethical online. We must not post pictures or contents without permission from the owner or post any inappropriate material, must not insult or bully people, respect the privacy of others, show good morals especially on social media and treat others the way we like to be treated!
In addition, teachers must not share lots of personal information and stay informed and aware about all the things that are happening in their communities and all around it.

It is highly recommended that digital citizenship should be embedded into curricula as educators can provide advices hence making schools as gateways for teaching learners as well as their parents about ethical and safety rules, security, responsibilities and respect of rights while using the internet.