A Quick Guide to Internet or E-safety for Teachers and Parents
The internet is an amazing part of life in the 21st Century, young people have not known a time without it, they use it from an early age enjoying the fun it has to offer, learning from it, researching topics for school, chatting to friends, playing games and more. It is inspiring, encourages creativity and gives all of us an opportunity to experience the creative offerings from others. We just need to ensure that safe use is encouraged from an early age for all to benefit from electronic communication – e-safety.
A Quick Guide to E-safety for Teachers and Parents
Published by Carol Rainbow at Smashwords
Copyright 2012
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Contents
Which skills make a digitally literate user?
Chapter 1 – Stranger Danger & Grooming
What advice is there for schools?
Ideas and activities for school
Cyberbullying and staff members
Resources to help teaching about cyberbullying
Ideas and advice for home and school
What if my child is being cyberbullied?
What if my child is the cyberbully?
What if I think a child is being cyberbullied?
Chapter 3- Commercial and Financial Scams
Understanding some of the terms and therefore the risks
Chapter 4 – Misinformation and brainwashing
Chapter 5 – Inappropriate content – pornography and sexual images
Chapter 6 – Schools and Facebook or other social networking sites
Digital footprint – understanding to protect
Examining one’s digital footprint
Advice for parents and schools
Purchasing a phone for a child
A resource for schools to use with pupils
Global Satellite Positioning – GPS
Should teachers use their own phones in the classroom?
Dealing with phone issues in school
Getting young people on the right track
Chapter 8 – Gambling and Serious Games
Is there something we can try to do to change behaviour?
Chapter 9 – Filtering and monitoring for home or school
Chapter 10 – Setting up home computers for safe use
Intellectual Property Right (IRP)
Chapter 12 – Acceptable Use Policies
Chapter 13 – E-safety for young people with special needs
E-safety for vulnerable young people
Chapter 14 – General E-safety resources for schools
Suitable sites for different ages
Issues to consider adding to the home/school agreement
Lesson plans that may be useful as starting points
Ideas for posters – could be developed anywhere
Chapter 15 – E-safety resources for parents and carers
Introduction
The benefit of the internet for pupils in schools is huge, it gives pupils access to the world’s most up to date library with video clips, sound files, images, photographs, academic papers, and it is being updated daily. It gives pupils an opportunity to communicate with people from around the globe easily and cheaply at a moment’s notice. The internet is becoming ubiquitous due to the massive uptake of smart phones and internet capable devices such as tablets, games machines, netbooks and a whole host of small mobile devices. Many of our children are nearly always connected and these numbers will continue to rise for the foreseeable future. E-safety is something that teachers need to know about and understand. Teachers and parents read horror stories in the newspaper which doesn't help in any way shape or form. Schools and teachers need to have a systematic program of study that is progressive across the whole school which introduces e-safety to small children then builds on their knowledge as they go through the primary school so that by the time children get to secondary school they have all the basics established and just need to refine their practice in preparation for adulthood. School policies are very important as they establish the exact sequence of what should be covered in any eventuality in one’s own school so that everyone in that establishment understands what is happening with regard to e-safety. Similarly at home a clear policy of use subscribed to by all users makes using the internet comfortable for all.
Some benefits of the internet
It is a huge up-to-date library
It is mostly free
It enables cheap or free communications across the world
It enables quick messaging between friends
It enables shopping without leaving the house
It enables banking, paying bills, visiting auction houses and bidding, planning a holiday and many other things
Why is it good for education?
It is inspiring and motivating, engaging pupils with their learning
It enables creativity, giving pupils an opportunity to use and remix content to make it their own incidentally building independence
It gives easy access to native speakers in any language improving target language conversation but also improves speaking and listening in their native language
It improves communication between schools and home giving parents and carers more immediate access to their child’s educational achievements, homework and school communications in the form of newsletters etc.
So where are the dangers? Many of those things that make it so attractive also give opportunities for danger. A key finding of the study by Ofcom 2011; UK Children’s Media Literacy, is that parental attitudes towards their child’s use of the internet is mostly positive with 82% of parents of children aged 5-15 trusting their child to use the internet safely. That is a large number. If that translates into parents not being actively involved in their children’s use of the internet then 82% of our young people are self-regulated. They probably need support!
More findings from the same reports shows that “While three in four children aged 5-15 (75%) use the internet at home through a PC or laptop, one in eight (12%) goes online via a games console / games player, and one in 20 (6%) via a mobile phone.” Children as young as five may have internet access in their bedroom. “Among those children aged 5-15 with a games console / games player in their bedroom, around one in seven (16%) use it to access the internet; accounting for 8% of 5-7s, 13% of 8-11s and 23% of 12-15s.”
The Net effect
The Internet changes everything for all of us but it is not “the problem.” “The Net effect,” is based on a group of characteristics identified by danah boyd (she prefers her initials lower case) in her doctoral dissertation, “Taken Out of Context: American Teen Sociality in Networked Publics.” http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2009/01/18/taken_out_of_co.html These characteristics include:
Persistence & searchability: the web has become a permanent, searchable archive, the Wayback Machine takes it right back to the beginning of the web.
Replicability: the web users have the ability to copy and paste from anywhere on the Net, to anywhere on or offline
Scalability: the net effect gives visibility to those way beyond the audience you had in mind
Invisible audiences: no-one can really know who is seeing, reading or watching what is posted
Blurring of public and private: an extension of invisible audiences because boundaries are no longer clear – who is content available for and who cannot see it?
The NEN Draft E-safety report 2011 says
“Many school personnel feel inadequately trained on e-safety issues (53% of all school personnel), and not adequately supported (42% of all school personnel).
Many school personnel have received one or a small number of sessions on this topic (76% of all school personnel), but the majority want further training (82% of all school personnel).”
The Safe Use of New Technologies 2010 http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications/090231 report by OFSTED is clear on what needs to be done to support safe internet use by young people. The OFSTED report states that the schools visited and surveyed "needed to focus more consistently on developing a curriculum for e-safety which builds on what pupils have learnt before and which reflects their age and stage of development; provide training which enables all staff, not just teachers, to support pupils; and helping families to keep their children safe
This short guide book is intended to be a quick reference to the dangers faced by young people on the internet and will suggest how to address them as well give teachers and parents information about where to get help and teaching or support resources. It will not replace training but may be helpful to those teachers and parents needing support.
Digital Literacy
It is very important for life in the 21st Century that everyone is digitally literate. Many children are born to households with many digital devices around and they learn to use them from a very early age. They are digitally confident children. That does not make them digitally intelligent or literate any more than being born in a household with books on the shelves means that they can read and write. Digital literacy may, and has been defined as the ability to both read and write in many different digital formats, meaning a digitally literate person could use photographs, video, audio and any combination of those to find, evaluate and use information, or share information with others, but that is a very narrow version of literacy aligned to reading and writing without the computer. Just like normal literacy skills digital literacy need to be taught and practiced in all subjects over years for it to be mastered and every teacher in every subject, as well as parents will add a bit more to complete the picture just like traditional literacy skill. There are many definitions for headings such as computer literacy, information literacy, media literacy, web literacy, E-maturity and lots more, they all have overlapping skills sets and all refer to the safe and intelligent use of technology. Digital literacy needs to be taught progressively across the whole school age range, starting from when children start using the internet to play little games, all the way through school and carried on by individuals well into adulthood. One may say “Surely once you can use the computer you don’t need to learn anymore,” but communications technologies are changing so quickly there are always new things to learn. Scammers and internet tricksters are getting more sophisticated by the day and even adults have a job keeping up with their tricks and keep themselves s
Wikipedia’s definition is: “Digital literacy is the ability to locate, organize, understand, evaluate, and analyze information using digital technology. It involves a working knowledge of current high-technology, and an understanding of how it can be used. Digitally literate people can communicate and work more efficiently, especially with those who possess the same knowledge and skill
Research around digital literacy is concerned with wider aspects associated with learning how to effectively find, use, summarize, evaluate, create, and communicate information while using digital technologies, not just being literate at using a compute
Digital literacy encompasses computer hardware, software (particularly those used most frequently by businesses), the Internet, cell phones, PDAs, and other digital devices. A person using these skills to interact with society may be called a digital citizen.”
Sometimes schools bring e-safety and digital literacy together saying that a good working knowledge of e-safety is part of being a digital citizen. E-safety is a big part of digital literacy, knowing how to use technology safely is also to know how to do many things with information technologies well.
Which skills make a digitally literate user?
The lists and definitions are changing as quickly as technologies are developing. Paul Glister first defined Digital literacy in 1997:
“Digital Literacy is the ability to understand and use information in multiple formats from a wide variety of sources when it is presented via computers.” That may have been valid in 1997, but technologies have developed to the most amazing extent since then and the definition needs to reflect the current situation.
Digital Literacy is not just about the set of skills needed to be able to use computers for normal literacy, if we consider Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy it gives us a guide to the verbs associated with learning and developing digital knowledge, if we apply these words to digital literacy it gives us a better picture of what it is and makes it easier to see the pathway to achieve it:
Blooms digital taxonomy, http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/Bloom%27s+Digital+Taxonomy (The work of Andrew Church) like the original version, starts with Lower Order Thinking Skills (LOTS) and works upwards, verbs associated with technology are:
Remembering - recognising, listing, describing, retrieving, locating, finding, bullet pointing, highlighting, bookmarking, social networking and searching
Understanding - Interpreting, summarising, inferring, paraphrasing, classifying, comparing, explaining, exemplifying advanced searches, Boolean searches, blog journaling, Twittering, categorising, tagging, commenting, annotating, subscribing
Applying -Implementing, carrying out, using, executing, loading, playing, operating, uploading, sharing and editing (Andrew Church adds hacking to this list, I omitted it as hacking is illegal and we would not want young people moving in that direction).
Analysing - Comparing, organising, deconstructing, attributing, outlining, finding, structuring, integrating, mashing, linking, validating, reverse engineering, cracking and media clipping (though one would need to be careful, a lot of reverse engineering and cracking would be illegal).
Evaluating - Checking, hypothesising, judging, testing, detecting, monitoring, blog commenting, reviewing, posting, moderating, collaborating, networking, refactoring and testing.
Creating - Designing, constructing, planning, producing, inventing, devising, making, programming filming, animating, blogging, video blogging, mixing, remixing, wiki-ing, publishing, videocasting, podcasting, directing and broadcasting.
All use lead to the Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS).
If we look through the list at how much of it shows a need for e-safety we can see a close correlation between intelligent use of the technologies, high achievement and understanding e-safety issue.
We see finding information, locating information and complex searching in the list learning to search safely is part of the e-safety progression. We see using images, video, audio and photographs so learning about copyright is essential. We see commenting on blogs, social networking, instant messaging all the way though, this is where an understanding of cyberbullying is needed and so on. Digital literacy needs e-safety intelligence, knowing how to use technology safely is also to know how to do many things with information technologies efficiently.
The National Higher Education Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Initiative has developed a definition of literacy for the 21st century:
“ICT proficiency is the ability to use digital technology, communication tools, and/or networks to define an information need, access, manage, integrate and evaluate information, create new information or knowledge and be able to communicate this information to others.” International ICT Literacy Panel (2002). Digital transformation: A framework for ICT literacy (A report of the International ICT Literacy Panel). Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service. Retrieved August 18, 2004, from http://www.ets.org/Media/Research/pdf/ictreport.pdf, I would simply add “safely” to the end!
Chapter 1 - Stranger Danger – Grooming
We could have fun together!
Most of us talk to strangers on a daily basis; it could be someone in the shop, the queue for the post office, on the bus or train, in the hairdressers, a restaurant or pub, fetching the children from school, shopping and so on. Is this dangerous? No of course not. It is a well-used saying that strangers are just friends that you have not met yet! Chatting to people is how we make friends. Sometimes we chat and it is pleasant, we have some sort of empathy, enjoy similar things, have similar interests and that person may become a real friend where with the next person that we meet we may spend a few minutes passing the time of day but never plan to see or meet that person again. This is completely normal behaviour for all of us. We take children on holiday and make friends, we go to parties and makes friends. Our children watch these social interactions from childhood through all of their growing-up years. They chat along with family, friends and strangers they have met whilst with the family and everyone is enchanted! Children are often very sociable little people enjoying other people’s company as much as grown-ups.
The Wikipedia definition: “Child grooming refers to actions deliberately undertaken with the aim of befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a child, in order to lower the child's inhibitions in preparation for sexual activity with the child, or exploitation…” and three quarters of that sentence could be used for simply making friends, if we changed “in preparation for sexual activity…” and used “in preparation for learning to take place” it is the sort of thing a teacher of any subject does with all of his or her pupils. Children are used to being groomed socially from an early age and most grooming is innocent. Where young children are concerned sexual grooming is quite rare, though as children move towards adolescence it is slightly more common.
So where could grooming take place? It could take place anywhere but meeting strangers is very easy on the internet in places like chat rooms and those people wishing to engage anonymously with children often use such places to try their luck.
Chat rooms
Chat rooms are special areas of the internet where people can log in, choose a username and instantly exchange messages with other people who are in the “room”. These messages are often very short, the conversation public to the people in the room and rapid fire so hard to follow. If one searches with any search engine for “teen chat rooms” and there are millions to be found, often they need no more than a name to get access. To get an idea of what they are like it is best to visit one and see the explicit nature of much of the chat. The names chosen by users give some indication of the topic often discussed. I logged into one purely on the off chance to see what was happening and within seconds spotted users calling themselves 15f UK4fun, Blond_chick, Captain Longdong Silver, Hung, Dirty Katie and 14f UK Black Beauty. This was specifically for teens, 13 – 19 and young people using those sorts of names are possibly making themselves vulnerable. The study called UK Children’s Media Literacy by Ofcom 2011 finds that “Around one in six children aged 12-15 (18%) agrees that “It’s easier to talk about personal things on the internet.” The youngsters in the room at that time were certainly talking about personal things with ease. Without being able to see people, so, no visual cues and voice inflection from the people being communicated with inhibitions may break down and people say more than they may when talking to someone face to face.
Teachers and parents will be familiar with the horror stories highlighted in the press; “ 15 year old girl runs off with a 40 year old man she met on the internet…” and similar. Most times we will then read that parents and school friends say she was a quiet girl who kept herself to herself and no-one imagined she would do anything like that.
Imagine being a shy, 14 year old girl with social problems, maybe family problems, having very few or no friends and someone starts chatting to you on-line. He is on-line regularly, chats several times every day, is always charming, friendly, flattering, makes you feel important to him. He empathises with your shyness, loneliness or other problems… He begins to offer advice and help. After months of chat he says he loves you and wants you to be together and offers to take you away from the misery you are living in now. He is offering all that you want, to be loved and taken care of, to be treated like a queen. You are going to fall in love with him regardless of who he is!
It is easy to see why this young lady may leave behind her problems for this wonderful caring person who is offering much needed love and attention even if he is a 50 year old paedophile. Once the girl has left home with little money and a few possessions and meets up with this stranger it is hard for her to get out of the situation she is already emotionally and probably financially dependent on him.
That however is the worst case scenario, most teens will not experience that. Many will get chatted up and be asked for a picture. Most will completely ignore these requests recognising them for what they are. Teens are likely to giggle over them with their friends then almost instantly forget them. In 2005 The Crimes Against Children Research Centre at the University of New Hampshire (Wolak, Mitchell & Finkelhor, 2006) carried out a study that indicated as many as one in seven young people receive unwanted sexual solicitations whilst on-line. 4% of the young people who responded said that they had received requests for nude or explicit photographs. There seems no doubt however that some of these are requests by other young people, who are exploring their own sexuality at the same time!
Chat sites do offer lists of rules for safe user such as:
Don't share your phone number, screen name, or any other personal information with anyone. We do not allow users to give out personal information in our chat rooms, if you are caught giving information that can identify you as an individual you will be removed for your own safety and the safety of our chat network.
Don't talk about private stuff that you wouldn't tell a stranger in real life.
If someone says strange or creepy things that make you feel uncomfortable, stop talking to them. Don't even give them an explanation. Stop, block and report them.
If you think someone's lying, they probably are trust your instincts.
Treat people as you wish to be treated.
Respect other people in the chat rooms.
Remember everybody wants to have a good time and chat.
Think about what you saying, these are real people with real feelings that you are talking to.
It is well worth asking pupils to make their own set of rules in groups, they can bounce ideas off each other and will come up with most of these and may be more, but they will have a far better sense of ownership if they have composed the list.
Social networking sites
“Although not quite the most popular activity, social networking is arguably the fastest growing online activity among youth. Certainly, social networking sites (SNS) have attracted widespread attention among children and young people, policy makers and the wider public. By integrating chat, messaging, contacts, photo albums and blogging functions, SNSs potentially integrate online opportunities and risks more seamlessly than was previously possible.” Risks and Safety on the Internet, The Perspective of European children (LSE 2011)
There is no doubt that more children every year are taking part in activities on social networking sites. They are getting better at making their profiles secure but there is still a lot of room for improvement.
From Risks and Safety on the Internet, The Perspective of European children (LSE 2011) the key findings are that
59% of 9-16 year olds have a social networking profile – including 26% aged 9-10, 49% aged 11-12, 73% aged 13-14 and 82% aged 15-16.
Among social network users, 26% have public profiles, 29% have more than 100 contacts, although many have fewer.
Among social network users, 43% keep their profile private so that only their friends can see it. A further 28% report that their profile is partially private so that friends of friends and networks can see it. Notably, 26% report that their profile is public so that anyone can see it.
Ofcom UK Children’s Media Literacy (2011) reports that 5% of internet users aged 5 – 7 year olds, 27% of 8 – 11 year olds and 79% of 12 – 15 year olds have an active social networking profile. Without doubt most of these are on Facebook. These are the children that own up to it – I know from canvassing many primary schools Year 5 and 6 classes up to 90% of pupils say they have a social network profile!
There are many really inspiring children’s social networking sites where they can meet other children, play games, chat with each other, and generally have a wonderful time. Most of these sites are very well moderated and lots of youngsters spend time there enjoying the company of other young people as avatars. Avatars give them anonymity so no-one can see their age, no-one knows their real name, that is a good way of protecting them.
Sadly one only has to watch a few You Tube videos of activities in these sites to see that there may be teens there who like to cause trouble and get thrown out by the moderators and some of the antics they get up to are not really suitable for younger eyes.
There is just a chance, a slight possibility of stranger danger here, children may be approached by strangers and worst case scenario is that they could be chatted to over a few months whilst friendship grows. An adult is likely be able to afford lots of the fun items from the shops and it is just possible, though not very likely that they may offer the children they are befriending the furniture, clothes or the goods that are used as rewards in that particular game. If that adult then asks the child for a photo the child may feel uneasy about having accepted gifts, and feel beholden to their new friend so coerced into doing something they do not want to do. Once they have done something they perceive as wrong they may feel worried about telling their parents what they have done for fear of being in trouble so there is the possibility of a downward spiral. “Last week you took a photo of yourself with your top off – if you don’t take a photo this week with all of your clothes off I will send that picture to your friends, your school and your mum and dad!” My constant message to children of all ages is that they have not done anything wrong, the other person is at fault and to tell parents or a trusted adult but it must be clear to that adult that the children are not wrong, the adults must not blame the child, that will put a barrier up and children will not be confident to tell someone if they feel they may get in trouble.
In some of these children’s social networking sites, it is almost impossible to see how there could be e-safety issues. I could not imagine any danger in one well known one for a long time then one day I heard a teacher saying that she goes into the game at night, plays loads of games and wins money which she exchanges for goods which she then uses as rewards for good work or good behaviour in her class the next day. It sounds brilliant and the kids love it – but – what if the same thing was done by a paedophile? I am not suggesting it would be but parents need to be on their guard!
The Sun newspaper highlighted one issue last year with the headlines Kids ‘in peril’… and the leading paragraph read: “PARENTS were last night warned that internet sensation [a game site] could leave their children vulnerable to paedophiles.” Messages in some games are exchanged on pin boards and the Sun claims to have found the messages: "You are hot", "I love you", "Are you going out with anyone?" and "Let's kiss." from avatars with names such as xxhotchicksxx and xxsexygirlxx.
So when thinking about these sorts of game playing social networks there are a few lessons to learn
Children are at slight risk of being contacted by strangers and they have no way of being sure who is contacting them!
To keep safe children should use safe, sensible names, nothing that gives away their age or real identity.
Parents need to be on hand, engaged with what their children are doing, who they are talking to and to support, keep check from a distance what is going on, watch for a stranger that is often about or offering gifts. Ideally simply talking to your children about what they are doing and who they are meeting will be reassuring to both parent and child.
I know several people who have made avatars or whatever their game requires in the same sites as their children and then gone on and played games with their own child. It works really well!
Adult social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace
Next we come to the more grown up version of social networks and children love them, quite happily joining, making profiles, uploading photographs and very often not locking them down simply because they do not know how to!
“Social networking sites (SNS) are popular among European children: 38% of 9-12 year olds and 77% of 13-16 year olds have a profile. Facebook is used by one third of 9-16 year old internet users… (Social Networking, Age and Privacy Sonia Livingstone, Kjartan Ólafsson and Elisabeth Staksrud)
The report also shows that:
Younger children are more likely than older to have their profile ‘public’. A quarter of 9-12 year old SNS users have their profile ‘set to public’.
Parental rules for SNS use, when applied, are partly effective, especially for younger children.
A quarter of SNS users communicate online with people unconnected to their daily lives, including one fifth of 9-12 year old SNS users.
One fifth of children whose profile is public display their address and/or phone number, twice as many as for those with private profiles.
The features designed to protect children from other users if needed are not easily understood, by many younger and some older children.”
Lots of children are using SNS and almost all of them have developed a profile. This is particularly true of children that have an older sibling that is seen using SNS, the younger child may copy without realising the consequences. I have looked at many profiles where there are lovely pictures of very young children, all dressed up for discos and similar, some of little girls wearing make-up and pouting provocatively at a camera, others of young boys playing football, or in swimming kit holding trophies aloft. To most people these will look innocent enough but if the children’s profiles are not locked down then other people can see them. The children’s biggest worry is that their classmates will see the pictures; they often have no idea of any sense of stranger danger attached to the images or how photographs can be doctored by sick minds. I have also seen an on-line photo collection of images harvested showing young girls posing, one leaning over a wall and showing underwear, in swimsuits, not fully clothed, often fun things that a family member may snatch, but collectively, on a stranger’s site, these are quite disturbing. To that particular company’s credit they fetched the site down as soon as they were told about it, but that collector almost certainly started a new site with a different name and is still harvesting photos of little girls.
Children are not allowed into many social networking sites until they are 13 but we know without any doubt that there are younger users. We can see from the quotation above just how many children still have unprotected profiles and read what parent’s feel from the next quotation:
“One third (32%) of parents of the children surveyed say their child is not permitted to have an SNS profile. A fifth (20%) say their child can only use SNS with supervision. Half say they do not restrict their child’s use of SNS.” (Social Networking, Age and Privacy Sonia Livingstone, Kjartan Ólafsson and Elisabeth Staksrud).
We can see from all of these examples of social networking that many hundreds of children may be accessible by strangers. Each offers the potential for grooming whether sexual or linked with various religious movements. If one of these strangers is trying to groom a child it will happen by looking for an opening talking about pets, hobbies, troubles, building confidence, friendship and empathy over months, it is not a make friends quickly scenario.
What does grooming look like?
Creating friendships through empathy, “Yes my parents treat me badly too, tonight they have shut me in my room just because I back chatted. What happened to you? I wish we were together…”
Asking for photos in return for favours, “Yes I have that new track by Anna, do you want it? I could send it by Messenger; we could have a real chat there, a private chat. You could switch your web cam on…” Think about the fact that “fetch your top off,” is probably said to most children several times a day. Adults will tell youngsters to get undressed, dressed, PE kit on, off, swimming kit on and off, you name it and the children are used to hearing it – it is no big deal, parents and teachers say these things all the time! Some children who have various medical conditions will be told the same thing by a series of doctors and nurses throughout their lives, these too are strangers! Just another adult, who can’t see them except through a camera – no big deal!
Blackmail with virtual world rewards, similar to above, “Yes I will buy you that new television for your avatar, yes and the DVD player, and the new clothes, how about talking outside this virtual world, can I send you a text message? We could talk anytime then, we could talk whilst you are in bed…”
Whilst watching a teen chat room this week I have seen Katie at ms n dot com – to get round the e-mail blocking filters!
Grooming, even trying to get explicit photographs from an adolescent is not necessarily dangerous, there are those who will do it because it gives them a kick, flatters their egos and they will go no further but children do need to be taught how to cope, how to lock down their profiles and how to ban people who are upsetting them. Also they could use the Click CEOP button and report a situation that felt wrong. What would be worse would be for the young people to be exposed to harmful content, including adult pornography or illegal child sexual abuse images; these, along with sexual chat may reduce young people’s inhibitions and leave them vulnerable to being manipulated or exploited. Most times this exploitation may be to pose in sexually provocative ways and pose naked and/or perform sexual acts via webcams or for them to be persuaded to meet where they were sexually exploited.
Young people may not realise the risks in what they are doing:
“The least prevalent behaviors may pose the most concern.
Posting personal information online, 56% of youth Internet users
Interacting online with unknown people, 43%
Having unknown people on a buddy list, 35%
Using the Internet to make rude and nasty comments to others, 28%
Sending personal information to unknown people met online, 26%
Downloading images from file-sharing programs, 15%
Visiting x-rated sites on purpose, 13%
Using the Internet to embarrass or harass people youth are mad at, 9%
Talking online to unknown people about sex, 5% Of youth Internet users ages 10 to 17, 15% were high risk interactors who communicated online with unknown people and engaged in at least four of the other behaviors on the above list (Wolak, et al., in press Available online “Predators” and their Victims: Myths, Realities and Implications for Prevention and Treatment1).”
There is lots of evidence to show that vulnerable young people can be at a higher risk of predation than many others, they may need more and better support than many. Schools often take great care to teach the masses, but, a couple of years into secondary school, maybe even before, many children have a clear understanding of how to keep safe on the internet. Sadly I have not heard of schools putting on extra sessions and offer more in depth support for those that are really vulnerable.
What advice is there for schools?
A whole range of help is to be found on-line at websites such as Ceop’s Think U Know http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/ and Childnet International’s Know it all http://www.childnet-int.org/kia/.
For Foundation Stage there is Lee and Kim's Adventure - Animal Magic an 8 minute animation introducing brother and sister navigating the web. Lee and Kim get help from their trusted superhero friend SID! SID shows them how to keep themselves safe while having fun. The cartoon is based on 4 simple tips, teaching children how to protect themselves. It addresses grooming, focuses on digital citizenship and highlights the importance of treating each other well and behaving responsibly whilst online. There is a whole tranche of downloadable resources to go with the cartoon; it is easy to imagine a whole program of work based on that alone.
For 5 – 7 year olds there is a set of cartoons Lee and Kim’s Adventures and Hector and Friends with age appropriate top tips.
For 8 – 11 year olds there is a wonderful film that was developed for safer internet day (SID), it is called Jigsaw and as well as showing a story acted out it discusses privacy with young children. This video is available from the Think u Know website or You Tube. On the children’s site there is a cyber café, information on how to report something wrong and several educational games for them to play.
For 11 – 16 there is information on having fun, staying in control, it introduces sexual abuse and again aids reporting.
In the teachers area there are lesson plans and resources to help in school, for parents there is a quiz to test knowledge, information on grooming, mobiles, gaming, social networking and chat.
Ideas and activities for school
Unpick any of the films; examine what they are showing and what the main points are. Make set groups of four to work out a set of five bullet points to share with the rest of the class.
Make Stop Animation plays about an aspect of e-safety stranger danger to share with other classes.
Make puppet plays about meeting strangers, write them and act them out, video them to share with others.
Make a poster about friends – draw a triangle and try to write three questions at the points. Make it so that is you can answer yes, yes, yes to the three questions then you are talking to a friend, two out of three you need to check carefully and one out of three is unlikely to be a friend! This is really hard to do – set it as a school competition.
Have an older adult with an internet linked computer in another room at school. Start a class chat saying it is a class in another school studying the local area. Get the pupils in both schools to exchange information for at least ten minutes. Ask the pupils if they would like to meet the children at the other school and bring the adult in. Hopefully the shock will get them to think about who they are talking to more carefully.
Give children or older students a pack of Postit notes and a pen and ask them to go round gathering full names, birthday dates, phone numbers, post codes and any other personal details from as many others as they can in 10 minutes. Time them. Ask them to place the post it notes on a table. Once they are all there go round and see just how many users have shared personal information! Again, hopefully realisation of what they have given away will make them think!
What do teachers do in the case of disclosure? Teachers should be well aware of the school policy on the subject of disclosure. Never promise a child that you will not tell someone else, make them aware that you will tell the person who can help them and follow it through. This is very hard to cope with, do not be judgmental; do not make comment, just promise that you will get help.
Ideas and advice for parents
If parents are not already familiar with social networking sites join one! If you can’t understand
ummmok nan ill put sumin when i can think of sumin
Gr8 2 c u 2day POS so MLAS
try to visit an instant text language site (or visit the appendix) and look through the abbreviations. Try out a chat program, it would be really helpful to learn how to do it. Find another parent in school and learn together by contacting each other! Talk to the children about what they are doing online, be interested in their friends whilst obviously allowing for some privacy, they will not want you watching whilst they are talking to a girl or boyfriend.
Face the fears learn about social networking and text messaging
Learn about chat language
Chat to the children about their online life – be accessible
For parents the most important thing is to keep communications open, one of the most distressing admissions I have ever heard was that parents got frustrated and shouted at their daughter for visiting a site they had warned her about and using language that they did not approve of, the daughter was desperate and not finding the support she needed in her parents committed suicide. Those parents will never, ever forgive themselves.
A good plan is to sit with the children and create a set of house rules, let the young people lead the way, if they create the rules they are more likely to stick to them. See Chapter 11 for creating a set of house rules.
Help and support
Ideally children and young people would talk to their parents or teachers firstly if anything was worrying them but the reality is as they get older they tend to talk to friends rather than adults. Many young people will not know which way t turn for the best and friends may not be the best advisers. Click CEOP is an easily accessible site offering support prior to submitting a case for help but if a young person does make a request for help it will be given.
The Click CEOP button http://www.ceop.police.uk/report-abuse/ offers help under the headings of cyberbullying, hacking, viruses, mobile problems, harmful content and grooming. Each button gives a description of what its title is, a button where one can get advice then allows someone to submit a report and request for help.
Chapter 2 - Cyberbullying
I Hate You – Loser!
Now that almost all teens have mobile phones, games devices that link to the web, laptops or netbooks there is a new form of bullying which has become a problem. In many ways it is the most serious risk to young people through the use of modern technology. It is more dangerous than other things because it causes a lot of pain and hurt to so many, embarrasses and lowers self-esteem for many and in the most extreme cases it has been the cause of the death of a young person.
Cyberbullying "involves the use of information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group that is intended to harm others.” Bill Belsey, this was used as the definition of cyberbullying in Wikipedia for a long time.
Repeated and hostile are the key words here, a one off nasty message to someone that one has had a disagreement with does not add up to cyberbullying, it has to be on-going nastiness designed to hurt the target.
There are other definitions, this one is important as it considers adult harassment as well.
"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.” http://www.stopcyberbullying.org/what_is_cyberbullying_exactly.htm
Cyberbullying is defined by the Government as: "the use of Information and Communications Technology (ICT), particularly mobile phones and the internet, deliberately to upset someone else” Source: Department for Education's Cyberbullying: Supporting School Staff, 2009.
Cyberbullying can take place in a variety of ways, using modern technologies many of which young people use all the time. Sometimes people will say something in fun, but because the person who said it can't see a reaction from the person on the receiving end they may not realise how much pain they are causing.
The most common format for cyberbullying is through texts or SMS, short messages sent over mobile phones or through chat rooms containing horrible messages, often anonymous, directed straight at the target. These can be very upsetting and unsettling as the target often does not know where it is coming from. Humiliating photographs or video clips may be included in texts shared among the group of friends or via Bluetooth or they could be put on the web.
On-line games playing or game consoles may be a source of cyberbullying whereby one person gets locked out of a game or abused in words during the game play.
Happy Slapping, though less common recently, is also an aspect of cyberbullying. A group or youths attack someone and others record it. Some Happy Slapping tends to be violent, and is always unexpected, normally for no reason other than the perpetrators trying to get fame on a video sharing channel.
Teens have been known to create spoof websites about their targets, maybe ridiculing them or with photographs that the target would not want shared publicly. Sometime bullies have hacked the target’s social networking profile and put nasty things in there, or sent nasty messages to the target’s friend. As many teens congregate, virtually, in Facebook or on You Tube that is where a lot of cyberbullying is reported. Facebook users who leave their accounts open when they move away from the computer may return to find nasty comments posted on their status or messages sent to their friends. This is a comparatively new abuse called Fraping – a combination of facebook and raping. It can be very distressing, even though the perpetrators may find it amusing.
Getting into fights online can lead to cyberbullying too – things can get out of hand very quickly in a texting situation that would be over and done with almost instantly in a face to face situation.
According to WiredKids http://www.wiredkids.org/ there are four types of bullies:
The Vengeful Angel
The Power-hungry Or Revenge of the Nerds
The Mean Girls
The Inadvertent Cyberbully
The “Vengeful Angel” rarely sees themselves as a bully, instead they think are helping out a friend or possibly their own child, parents easily can and do find themselves in this role! The vengeful angel may disguise themselves to try to get back at the bully but in doing so become a bully themselves, often without realising. It is impossible to counter bullying with more bullying that only makes things worse. The fact that they may have disguised themselves to get revenge points towards cyberbullying alone!
The “Power-hungry Or Revenge of the Nerds” is like the playground bully doing things to frighten or hurt someone and wanting an audience to share their exploits and make them feel powerful. These cyberbullies may have technical prowess, creating websites that mock their target or hacking into other user’s computers. They are not nice to know! They may try to enlist the target’s friends, create jokes for people to laugh at and do mean tricks. This is where the “laugh and you are part of it” may fit the best. Friends must support their friends not succumb to the bully’s tactics.
“Mean Girls” cyberbullying is often planned and carried out in a group of girls which forms their own audience. This bullying is most often for fun or entertainment where the reward is the group's approval. The whole group is as guilty as the person carrying out the bullying because they are not doing anything to stop it. This is very often teasing a girl because she does not have the latest clothes, makeup, hair style, music or some other fashion accessory!
The “Inadvertent Cyberbully” often fails to realise they are a cyberbully at all. They are just reacting to something that someone else did. The get a nasty message so they fire off a sharp, nasty retort! A useful tactic is to teach young people walk away from the phone or computer, do something that they enjoy for five minutes and then respond, politely, calmly and without making the situation worse. Sending a nasty, hasty message back inflames the situation and the bullied becomes the bully. Don’t forget the evidence is left on the phones or the internet!
How much of a problem is it?
“Close to half of all children aged 12-15 (47%) say they know of someone who has had gossip spread about them, around one in three (35%) know of someone who has sent an email or text message they regretted, and slightly less than three in ten know of someone who has experienced embarrassing pictures being made public (29%) or of someone pretending to be them (28%).” Ofcom UK Children’s Media Literacy (2011)
“One in five (19%) 9-16 year olds across Europe say that someone has acted in a hurtful or nasty way towards them in the past 12 months.” Risks and Safety on the Internet, The Perspective of European children (LSE 2011)
Among the data recorded for the Risks and Safety on the Internet, The Perspective of European children (LSE 2011) report it seems that there is the likelihood that young people being bullied are retaliating and so becoming bullies themselves. This seems to be particularly true among girls.
Hacking can be a serious issue in cyber bullying. Most school hacking is because users get to know, other’s passwords by guessing or working out through knowledge of the other person’s real life such as mother’s name, first pet and all of those standard security questions. They can then log in as the other person and send nasty e-mails to others in disguise – or as I heard the other day, one girl sent a nasty message to herself as her friend because they had fallen out earlier and she wanted to get her friend into trouble.
Is Cyberbullying a bigger problem than usual playground bullying?
The answer is that because teens and young people have the mobile phones in their possession all of the time the bullying may take place at any time of day or night, the target cannot get away from it, it is in their own homes and bedrooms. There is no escape! Also the perpetrators are often not known and may be the target’s own peer group so the target is not even at ease among his or her friends. It is very easy for a bully to use technology to hide his or her identity. It is particularly upsetting as it can be unrelenting and can carry on for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
The anonymity of the Internet gives bullies the opportunity to contact their target with little fear of retaliation. Sometimes it is very hard to find out who the bullies are. The audience may be much bigger than in a real-life bullying episode. I can remember playground spats where all around chanted “fight, fight, fight” and everyone came running to see, but in a cyberbullying case it can soon be hundreds if not thousands that witness it. Any pictures or videos posted publically may be impossible to remove so there is a lasting reminder of the humiliation and the possibility of further misery. Written words, even those that no-one else may see or hear are much harder to cope with than those shouted in anger.
The friends who get drawn into a cyberbullying episode who join in or laugh at it become part of it. Those who know it is happening and do not try to stop it become part of it too. Ironically it is very often the parents of victims who make the problem far worse and do more bullying than the children or young people. That is something adults really need to take care to avoid. Professionals in this field are seeing this problem repeated everywhere.
Could I be a cyberbully?
It is time to think carefully about our own behavior whilst on-line. There is evidence that some people who are being cyberbullied are actually cyberbullies themselves. Could anyone be a cyberbully without realising? Do a little survey asking young people:
Have you ever...
Posted pictures, video clips or information about someone on a web site without their consent?
Sent anyone rude things or things that would frighten them?
Manipulated pictures or videos of your target to ridicule them?
Forwarded private information, pictures or messages to other people?
Used someone else’s login to get into their account to read what is there or gather their personal information?
Used that information to embarrass or upset someone?
Sent a nasty IM or e-mail message pretending to be someone else?
Teased, been rude or insulting to anyone in text messages, whilst playing online games or in chat rooms?
Hidden your identity to do something on-line?
Made up stories or lies about other people and passed them on as facts?
Created a poll to find the ugliest, fattest, most stupid kid in school?
Signed someone else up for something online without their permission?
Used bad language to make someone uncomfortable?
Sent an “I’m going to get you” threat?
It may be time that people reading that list and realising they may have done some of those things could decide to turn over a new leaf and remember there are real people with real feelings on the other end of the fun, jokes, antics or whatever they call their behaviour. Someone on the receiving end may feel that they are being cyberbullied!
Is it illegal?
Cyberbullying itself is not a specific criminal offence but there are criminal laws that can apply in terms of harassment and threatening or menacing communications. The Public order act Section 4a 1986 mentions using threatening abusive language, and protection from harassment Act 1997 Sec 1 - legislates against harassment on purpose. Those apply to all bullying then the Communications Act 2003 covers using electronic methods to harass so there is background legislation in place to protect against cyberbullying.
There are specific laws to protect staff and pupils that schools need to respond to
The Education and Inspections Act 2006 requires headteachers to encourage good behaviour and respect for others on the part of pupils and, in particular, preventing all forms of bullying among pupils. Headteachers are specifically granted powers that enables them to police Cyberbullying carried out by pupils even at home to such extent as is “reasonable”, it includes measures to be taken with a view to regulating conduct of pupils at a time when not on the school premises and are not under the lawful control or charge of a member of staff (Sec 89(5) EIA 2006) Where it is reasonable for the school to regulate pupils, that would become a matter for the courts to determine!
Under the School Standards and Framework Act 1998 State schools in the UK are required to have anti-bullying policies in place and these must include cyberbullying. Independent schools have similar obligations under the Education (Independent Schools Standards) Regulations 2003.
Under common law we all have a duty of care. Individuals from all walks of life have a duty to take reasonable care to avoid foreseeable harm to each other and anyone found guilty of breeching that duty of care may have to pay damages to anyone who suffers harm as a result. This could be for the school organisation as well as for the individual.
See the Appendix for a comprehensive list.
Cyberbullying and staff members
A survey in March 2010 showed that 1 in 7 teachers have been the victim of Cyberbullying by pupils or parents on sites such as Little Gossip, Rate My Teacher or Facebook.
The NAHT receives hundreds of calls from teachers being cyberbullied and the majority of complaints are in relation to parental conduct. The Teacher Support Network getting an increasing number of calls about Cyberbullying. Some refer to hate groups on social networking sites showing fake teacher profiles, and there are videos of teachers posted on YouTube.