22. Explore and evaluate the LGfL content, Us Online as a resource for raising children’s awareness of e-safety and equipping them with the skills to keep safe online. http://usonline2.lgfl.org.uk/
A somewhat unexpected stance from this quarter. What contribution should pupils and parents make to a school’s e-safety provision? Did any students receive briefing or training from the school?
Looking at technology from the perspective of children, stories about how they use online spaces to build relationships and create original content. Interviews, discussions, conversations, 60 diaries, poll of 600 parents. “ The use of digital technology has been completely normalised by this generation, and it is now fully integrated into their daily lives. The majority of young people simply use new media as tools to make their lives easier… Almost all are now also involved in creative production, from uploading and editing photos to building and maintaining websites. … many children we interviewed had their own hierarchy of digital activities when it came to assessing the potential for learning… they were very conscious that some activities were more worthwhile than others.”
Becta funded study of 612 KS2 children in 5 schools. Really impressive methodology, survey plus a website where pupils submit their own ideas about how schools’ use of technology could come closer to their own experience out of school, using open text, pictures and video, but hardly any of the children used this because a) “It was not a part of the culture of any of the schools in the sample to compose online content in either blog or wiki form”, and b) the filtering in place wouldn’t let the children access the site from inside school! They did, however, use childrens’ drawing as a way of capturing something of their visiion for technology. This work was quite influential in how we framed our own survey, and we hope to be able to do some triangulation against their results in follow up work. “ Many primary pupils’ actual engagement with ICT to be often perfunctory and unspectacular - especially within the school setting… Home internet was dominated by online games, watching video clips and, to a lesser extent, chatting and using social networking sites… it was notable that creative and collaborative uses of so-called ‘Web 2.0’ applications were not prevalent either inside or outside school, with passive consumption rather than active production the dominant mode of engagement. “
“ Online spaces provide unprecedented opportunities for kids to expand their social worlds and engage in public life, whether that is connecting with peers over MySpace or Facebook, or publishing videos on YouTube,” said Ito. “Kids learn on the Internet in a self-directed way, by looking around for information they are interested in, or connecting with others who can help them. This is a big departure from how they are asked to learn in most schools, where the teacher is the expert and there is a fixed set of content to master.”
Notable gender differences Girls leading the boys with music, pictures, chatting and social networks, and blogging and school related learning (16 point difference here!) Boys taking the lead for learning unrelated to school, games and cheats, hobbies, video, ict skills and making websites.
There is a perception amongst our sample that their teachers really knew very little about how they were using technology out of school – with over a third claiming their teachers knew nothing about this. Surely one of the ways we can move forward to leverage the benefits of pupils informal learning through technology is to start this conversation.
I’m not aware of case law in which children claim their human rights are infringed because they can’t access facebook, but, perhaps, it’s only a matter of time. The above would, in practice, be trumped by article 2, which says we always put the best interests of the child first.
![10. Safe and responsible use of the Internet ,[object Object]](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/y1l10esafety-120117163725-phpapp01/85/Y2-l10-esafety-1-320.jpg)
