Is technology easily monitored and safe within primary education?

There are ongoing arguments about whether or not technology should be fully implemented within primary education classrooms because of the vast array of positives and negatives. Positives include: huge databases with useful and up-to-date information, fun, interactive and educational games, bringing communities across the world closer together, creating real world scenarios within the comfort of a classroom, easy access, and many more. Negatives include: harmful material can easily be accessed, teachers can sometimes find it hard to monitor their student’s activity, risks of cyber bullying, people creating false personas, young children may find it difficult to keep on track becoming distracted and purchasing things which they should not.

Technology is beneficial within a classroom environment as it gives children the opportunity to broaden their knowledge far more than just the same old books that have been used before. Technology is becoming more common within classrooms with the likes of tablets, laptops and interactive boards being used.  There are however many reasons why practitioners and parents are concerned about the use of technology at a young age. The internet can be a dangerous place, especially for younger people as they are vulnerable and sometimes do not realise harmful material can be one click away. Government guidance across the UK highlights the importance of safeguarding pupils from harmful and inappropriate online material, NSPCC.

There is a lot of evidence to suggest that technology is easily monitored and can be controlled with ease by a teacher within a learning environment. Teachers can have access to a linked profile so they can see their student’s screens on one main screen, this makes it easier for teachers to track their student’s activity and to keep them on track with the task at hand. Monitoring progress is also convenient as teachers can track student’s history and keep an electronic copy of student’s progress and grades on a single spreadsheet. Graphs can also be made in correlation to a student’s grade average, this may give some teachers a clearer vision on who may need more help and support whilst also showing how some student’s react to different teaching methods.

I have found an acronym for internet safety rules from the website ‘UK Safer Internet Centre’ which allows for a memorable way of keeping safe whilst using the internet. The acronym used is ‘SMART’ which stands for

Safe - Keep safe by being careful not to give out personal information when you're chatting or posting online.

Meet - Meeting someone you have only been in touch with online can be dangerous. Only do so with your parents' or carers' permission and even then, only when they can be present.

Accepting - Accepting emails, messages, or opening files, images or texts from people you don't know or trust can lead to problems — they may contain viruses or nasty messages!

Reliable - Someone online might lie about who they are and information on the internet may not be true.

Tell - Tell a parent, carer or a trusted adult if someone, or something, makes you feel uncomfortable or worried, or if you or someone you know is being bullied online.

It is a great way for young students to use this to cap risk and keep them safer whilst using technology within a classroom.

I think this acronym is a reliable and clever way to keep young internet users safe as it covers the main issues of internet safety.

References:

NSPCC (2019) E-safety for schools. Online at: https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/schools/e-safety-for-schools/ [Accessed: 12/4/19]

UK Safer Internet Centre. (2019) SMART Rules! Online at https://www.saferinternet.org.uk/advice-centre/young-people/resources-3-11s [Accessed: 12/4/19]