Embedding online safety in the curriculum

eSafety in the curriculum

While ICT and digital media offer an enormous potential for children and young people to explore, connect, and create, pupils need additional guidance on how to behave safely and responsibly in an online world. In particular, they need to learn effective strategies for finding a balance between opportunities and risks, for managing their online information and keeping it secure, for protecting their own privacy and respecting other’s, for responding to cases of cyberbullying, for distinguishing between inappropriate and positive contacts or content, and so forth.

Guidelines

  • Be sure that eSafety is taught as part of the curriculum, regardless of whether this is a statutory obligation in your country.
  • While it might be most evident to teach eSafety in ICT- or media-related courses, your school should aim for a more comprehensive cross-curricular approach, which explores the many links between eSafety and other curriculum areas.
  • Because eSafety is a cross-curricular responsibility, all teachers should receive regular training on issues such as privacy and security, digital footprint and reputation, cyberbullying, information literacy, and so forth.
  • When teaching about these and other eSafety issues, try to start from what pupils already know and encourage them to share their experiences of the online world.
  • Engage pupils in peer mentoring and facilitate bottom-up interactive discussion.