Are you a digital immigrant or a digital native? Mike Ribble (2011) uses these terms to describe the way in which we engage with technology. As parents and educators we are learning how to keep up with our children who have been born in to a digital world and who instinctively understand it. One of the biggest issues we face is to not only keep up with this evolutionary world of technology but to ensure that we keep our students, who have no fear of this unknown, safe.
In today’s climate, particularly the rapid rate in which students have access to devices, it is important that they know and underst
and best practice for engaging with technology for their own learning. However, it is imperative that they know how to safeguard their own well-being and develop an awareness of how to stay safe online. Schools have procedures in place to make sure your child’s analogue (offline) and digital (online) presence is safe.
Much of our digital citizenship education approach should be directly related to being a good citizen and engaging with good-decision making. We cannot guess what technology is going to hold or look like in the coming years, but what we can do is equip our children with the skills needed in order to navigate the digital world.
The connection between home and school is necessary so you can build a collective vision and understanding of digital citizenship. A community-wide approach will help engage students in making good choices as they receive the same message at home and school. To that end, below are some tips on how to keep your children safe while online at home.
Make passwords easy to remember, but hard to guess: encourage your children to include lower and upper case as well as symbols and numbers, (but not birthdates / years) Eg, Instead of james100 try: J@me$1oo
Take advantage of privacy settings: when you install a new app, pay close attention to the privacy settings so children are not open to being seen online. In addition, turning location settings off helps protect your children’s location.
Check age guidelines of apps: while it is easy to check age restrictions on iTunes, you can enable age allowances or restrictions on your child’s device. Utilising these settings will ensure your child does not download apps that are not appropriate.
Surf the Internet with child: see how they use the Internet and what they like to do online. Ask them to show you their favourites sites, videos, apps and games. Keep Internet use in high frequency areas of your home so you can check in with their usage frequently.
Finally, and most importantly,
Engage with digital citizenship learning: websites like commonsensemedia.com are an effective resource when locating relevant information for parents, teachers and children. It covers keeping safe online, current news and reviews appropriateness of movies, apps and TV amongst other useful tips.
Ribble, Mike. Digital Citizenship in Schools, Second Edition. International Society for Technology in Education, 2011.
