You may have seen the term 'Applying social and ethical protocols and practices when using ICT' during the years of your child's education. However, has the relevance and importance of this statement ever been explained to you? This is one of the elements in the Information and Community Technology General Capability from the Australian Curriculum website. This is basically to ensure that your child knows and understands the guidelines for safe and respectable interaction online.
This capability is important to the structure of the Australian Curriculum, as ICT is an important skill that our students need to understand in order to be successful in the twenty-first century (Australian Curriculum: General Capabilities, n.d.).
During the last 10 years ICT has increasingly become more present in our lives and you’ll find that social media is everywhere. In some cases, people rely on social media for most aspects of their lives. It was reported in 2014 that there were 1.23 billion monthly users of Facebook worldwide- one-sixth of the world population (Ross, 2014). In Australia, 9 million people use Facebook daily and 7.3 million of them use their mobile phone to access this site (Ross, 2014).
What this means is that your child can have access to social media websites such as Facebook wherever they are. They will be exposed to everyone they’re connected with on these websites; even with people they may not know. Cyber bullying could also be an issue they could run into with such easy access to technology, meaning that they could be bullied or bully a person wherever they are.
You may think that your child knows how to use technology better than you do, but there are still ways that you can help your child be safe on the Internet.
By looking at the Australian Curriculum ICT general capabilities, you can decipher what it is that your child needs to be aware of. I’ll kick start this process by showing you an example of what can be done at home with assistance from you.
Apply personal security protocols
Prevent strangers/non-friends from viewing your child’s Facebook profile.
The first thing we’ll go through is how to ensure that only approved friends can view your child’s Facebook profile. If their Facebook account doesn’t have the correct privacy settings, then anyone can view their profile, look through their photos, see their location, find out personal information, read their status updates, and contact them through the instant messaging system.
This is what my Facebook profile looks like when my friends view it, or what it would look like if my profile didn’t have any privacy settings.
This capability is important to the structure of the Australian Curriculum, as ICT is an important skill that our students need to understand in order to be successful in the twenty-first century (Australian Curriculum: General Capabilities, n.d.).
During the last 10 years ICT has increasingly become more present in our lives and you’ll find that social media is everywhere. In some cases, people rely on social media for most aspects of their lives. It was reported in 2014 that there were 1.23 billion monthly users of Facebook worldwide- one-sixth of the world population (Ross, 2014). In Australia, 9 million people use Facebook daily and 7.3 million of them use their mobile phone to access this site (Ross, 2014).
What this means is that your child can have access to social media websites such as Facebook wherever they are. They will be exposed to everyone they’re connected with on these websites; even with people they may not know. Cyber bullying could also be an issue they could run into with such easy access to technology, meaning that they could be bullied or bully a person wherever they are.
You may think that your child knows how to use technology better than you do, but there are still ways that you can help your child be safe on the Internet.
By looking at the Australian Curriculum ICT general capabilities, you can decipher what it is that your child needs to be aware of. I’ll kick start this process by showing you an example of what can be done at home with assistance from you.
Apply personal security protocols
- identify and value the rights to identity, privacy and emotional safety for themselves and others when using ICT and apply generally accepted social protocols when using ICT to collaborate with local and global communities (Information and Communication Technology (Australian Curriculum: ICT, n.d.).
Prevent strangers/non-friends from viewing your child’s Facebook profile.
The first thing we’ll go through is how to ensure that only approved friends can view your child’s Facebook profile. If their Facebook account doesn’t have the correct privacy settings, then anyone can view their profile, look through their photos, see their location, find out personal information, read their status updates, and contact them through the instant messaging system.
This is what my Facebook profile looks like when my friends view it, or what it would look like if my profile didn’t have any privacy settings.
You can assist your child in making their Facebook account private by directing them to the settings option in the blue bar, where you will be redirected to a general settings page.
From the general settings page, you will need to select the privacy option, where you will be redirected to another page.
On the privacy page, you can edit to make sure that only friends can see your posts; you can view and approve something you’re tagged in before it is posted on your timeline.
Once you have made your profile so that friends can only view it, it should look like this from the perspective of someone who isn’t an approved friend.
From now on, anyone who views my profile will only be allowed to click on my most recent profile picture, and wont be able to see any personal information or status updates.
Some information and photos will still be visible to the public, have your children assess their photos as whether they are appropriate or not. Some photos can contain clues as to where your child is, or frequents. Things like school uniforms, sporting uniforms and local café’s and shops can give these clues.
How to block a particular person from contacting and viewing their Facebook profile.
On the general settings page, click blocking, where you will be redirected to another page. On this page there is a section which says ‘block users’ in this section you can type in the name of the person and choose to block them. Once you have done this, they will no longer be able to see anything you have posted, even a comment on a mutual friends status.
Some information and photos will still be visible to the public, have your children assess their photos as whether they are appropriate or not. Some photos can contain clues as to where your child is, or frequents. Things like school uniforms, sporting uniforms and local café’s and shops can give these clues.
How to block a particular person from contacting and viewing their Facebook profile.
On the general settings page, click blocking, where you will be redirected to another page. On this page there is a section which says ‘block users’ in this section you can type in the name of the person and choose to block them. Once you have done this, they will no longer be able to see anything you have posted, even a comment on a mutual friends status.
Another thing you and your child can do to maintain their privacy is to go through their friends list together and assess whether they know the person or not. You will be surprised at how many people on your friends list that you don’t actually know, or they’re a friend of a friend who you haven’t actually met before.
Why is this so important?
Children often don’t understand that Facebook is a public place, even if they have privacy settings. Anything they post, share or comment on can still be viewed, or screen shotted by another person. Have a conversation with your children about how anything posted online, will stay online forever, and encourage them to think about what they do online and whether they think it would be a good thing to come up in a Google search of their name (Safeguarding Children, n.d).
Another important issue is cyber bullying. Any behaviour on Facebook that causes other children to be upset, hurt or embarrassed is classed as cyber bullying, which isn’t tolerated in the safety standards and guidelines set by the social network (Facebook Safety Centre, n.d). They should also be aware that the policy from DECS is to suspend or expel students who have been proved to have bullied another student online, even if the incident occurred outside of school (DECS, 2015, p.12).
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post, I hope that it has helped you and your child to become more aware of how to keep safe online.
Kimberly Murrell - 2107450
References:
Why is this so important?
Children often don’t understand that Facebook is a public place, even if they have privacy settings. Anything they post, share or comment on can still be viewed, or screen shotted by another person. Have a conversation with your children about how anything posted online, will stay online forever, and encourage them to think about what they do online and whether they think it would be a good thing to come up in a Google search of their name (Safeguarding Children, n.d).
Another important issue is cyber bullying. Any behaviour on Facebook that causes other children to be upset, hurt or embarrassed is classed as cyber bullying, which isn’t tolerated in the safety standards and guidelines set by the social network (Facebook Safety Centre, n.d). They should also be aware that the policy from DECS is to suspend or expel students who have been proved to have bullied another student online, even if the incident occurred outside of school (DECS, 2015, p.12).
Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post, I hope that it has helped you and your child to become more aware of how to keep safe online.
Kimberly Murrell - 2107450
References:
- Australian Curriculum (n.d.). General Capabilities in the Australian Curriculum. Retrieved from www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/generalcapabilities/overview/general-capabilities-in-the-australian-curriculum
- Australian Curriculum (n.d.). Information and Communication Technology (ICT) capability: Continuum. Retrieved from www.australiacurriculum.edu.au/generalcapabilities/information-and-communication-technology-capability/continuum
- Department for Education and Child Development (DECS). Social Media Guideline . (June 2015). Retrieved from www.decd.sa.gov.au/docs/documents/1/DecdSocialMedia.pdf
- Facebook (n.d), Facebook Safety Centre. Retrieved from www.facebook.com/safety
- Ross, M. (2014). Facebook turns 10: the world’s largest social network in numbers. Retrieved from www.abc.net.au/news/2014-02-04/facebook-turns-10-the-social-network-in-numbers/5237128
- Safeguarding Children: If Your Child is Aged 13 or Over (n.d.). Retrieved from www.getsafeonline.org/safeguarding-children/13-or-over/
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.