CyberSafe Schools

With the Government seeing the importance of using Information Technology including the Internet, Teachers need to be aware of the benefits and potential dangers of using the internet. NetAlert Limited, through government funding, created the “Teacher’s Guide to Internet Safety” (NetAlertLimited, 2004) that was distributed to all Australian Schools (NetAlertLimited, 2004, p. 3).

This guide highlights benefits, risks and how to teach internet safety.

Some dangers highlighted in the CyberSafe report included:-

· Exposure to inappropriate material. “Pornographic, sexually explicit or offensive, hateful or violent, or that encourages activities that are dangerous or illegal” (NetAlertLimited, 2004, p. 6).

· Physical danger. “Stranger danger – meeting someone online who may claim to be someone they are not” (NetAlertLimited, 2004, p. 6).

· Commercialism of the Internet and financial risks. Scam sites, enticing students to purchase things they do not need, and gambling (NetAlertLimited, 2004, p. 6).

· Harassment and bullying. Including “teasing and being made fun of, spreading of rumours online, sending unwanted messages and defamation” (NetAlertLimited, 2004, p. 7).

· Privacy. The revealing of “their name, email address, age and gender, and sometimes even their phone number and postal address through completing online forms just (for studnets) to access information” this can result in “being targeted for spam, advertising materials, viruses and other illicit purposes” (NetAlertLimited, 2004, p. 7).

· Unreliable information. Information on the internet may “misrepresent the truth, be out of date, biased or just incorrect” (NetAlertLimited, 2004, p. 7).

· Spam. “Email equivalent of junk mail or nuisance phone calls” (NetAlertLimited, 2004, p. 7)

· Viruses. “Emails for unknown senders can contain virus-infected attachments, or following links in an email to a virus-infected website” (NetAlertLimited, 2004, p. 7)

Awareness is great but by itself is not enough, students need to be taught how to interact safely with the internet. The Australian Government and ACMA have created interactive resources for use in schools to help teach internet safety, they include, and are available at http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/ (ACMA, 2009).

Learning the protocols for the internet helps students understand our rule based society better, to enable them to interact fully when they have completed school, treating others with respect and dignity (NetAlertLimited, 2004, p. 5)

ACMA. (2009). cyber(smart:): Schools Gateway. Retrieved 24 November, 2010, from http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/Schools.aspx

NetAlertLimited. (2004). A Teacher's Guide to Internet Safety. Retrieved from http://www.ozguide.com/netalert_teachers_guide.pdf.