Online Safety Learning Diary

1- Write down the things you might now need to do differently as a result of this audit and
make any necessary changes to your online activity.

My school has very clear and strict regulations for social media use. Thus as a teacher I have to
bind myself to these rules which focus on preventing any harm that my affect myself or the
pupils. Contacting the student or the school personal should be done through the school
channel or by using the common school email domain, and cannot be done through any private
channel; safeguarding issues are a big deal when it comes to communication privacy. This
actually facilitates communications between different departments and between the teacher
and the students. My personal social media accounts are all private and inaccessible for the
students. My activity has been limited to sending messages and receiving them. Things that I
will do now differently is that I will record all of the conversations as after meeting minutes to
have an evidence when asked. Also I will stop using my own device at school, I will work with
what I have at school. Also I will consider any future post before posting, if I might even post it
in the future.

2- Make notes in your Learning Diary on the key findings from each of the four sections.

a- How I use social media:

According to the report Late primary and early secondary are among the highest users of social
media. They mainly access social media platforms seeking to spend some time of enjoyment in
general. Although reasons may differ from age to age but the most common reason is that they
just have extra time that they have anything else to spend at. However students must be
careful while they use and manipulate the content of the social media’s platforms. They should
be aware of what to share and what is better kept private. Also they better know when to
report a finding or an incident before things gets messier.

b- My friends and family:

Young students can only use their parents devices as a shared device for them to get an access
to the social media and communicate with their friends, but this should be done very carefully.
Although allowing young students to use their parents’ devices put them under constant
supervision and put limits for the usage of the internet by the students. However allowing the
kids such an access put them in the danger of seeing and dealing with age-inappropriate
content that could be a safeguarding issue. Older siblings can play a role in leading and guiding
their younger siblings while using their social media. Previous transferrable experience among
the same age plays an important role in acknowledging the users of the dangers. Dangers that
may include cyber bullying for instance or sending inappropriate content or abuse of data.
Furthermore, kids need to be aware of how they communicate with their friends, including the
content they share on their page or in a conversation. More importantly to be able to identify
times when they are subjected to a negative action or attitude, and to be able to judge properly
on whom is trustworthy and who is not.

c- Growing up on social media:

As students grow up using social media, they start getting affected by the community or by the
activity to be done on the social platform. Students who spend more time on social medial
platforms which promotes the visual aspect more than other aspects tend to be more aware of
their look, including choices of clothing which has been noted mainly for students who tend to
spend more time on Instagram. The other group of kids who use more interactive platforms
that do not rely mainly on pictures and photos, tend to take less consideration about their
clothing. However social growing up using social media can lead to drastic effect especially
when it transforms to a way of competition between students who try to prove that someone
else is wrong. Growing up and misuse of social media could increase the ego of a student
leading to a very self-centered person.

3- Choose two of the strands and for each think about some teaching activities for your age
group that could support some of the knowledge or behaviours it refers to. Describe the
activities in your Learning Diary. You could use ideas from ‘Teaching Online Safety in
Schools’ to support this.

a- Self image and identity:

Being aware of myself and my doings is very crucial in determining how the society perceives
me. Being able to judge properly on my private content and what to share and what is kept out
of reach is mandatory to prevent getting myself in difficult situations on the social media
platforms. This knowledge should be transferred to students so they are able to regulate their
presence online by themselves. Also they should learn how to critically analyse the information
they receive from any source on the social platform, evidence based data collection or even
news collection can play an important role in raising the awareness against rumors and their
propagation. Furthermore, students need to understand that any visual data can be
manipulated to deliver a certain message; they have to learn the basics of being able to tell
when it is a scam and when it is real. I believe showing examples to my students about different
situations and how they have been handled and ask them to critically analyse the situations and
discuss whether the action of the individuals in each was correct or not and how it could have
been improved.
 b- Online Bullying:

Any type of bullying inside school premises is an unaccepted act that should be interrupted and
an interceptive action should be taken to avoid the recurrence. One type of bullying takes place
online on social media between students and it is considered to be an act of aggression.
Technology impacts bullying issues greatly thus we should teach students how to be able to
recognise that they are a subject of bullying at any time or not. They should know how to
differentiate between an act of bullying or a banter, also they should learn about different
forms of online bullying. As a society they need to demonstrate how they can intervene and
stop an act of bullying against any of the colleagues online. Finally they have to understand and
show that they are able to report a situation of bullying occurred on social media and
appropriate steps of reporting. I can bring my students a presentation about different
situations, where different students are subjected to different forms of online bullying, and ask
them to analyse the situations in groups and comment on the action that have been taken by
both sides. Finally, they discuss their findings with me and the whole class to determine the
best action related to each situation.

4- My Own Reflection:

This session was very informative; it describes the school’s ability to safeguard and protect
teachers and students about proper usage of social media and online communication. Also to
teach students proper ways of reporting a negative behaviour on the social media, and last to
arm them with tools helpful to guide them during their online presence. My school is following
the British regulations, principles and values as mentioned in this session, and as a teacher I
have to inform myself about these values and review them during the induction week.

Online safety has been an important subject of discussion in my school since the closure back in
2019 because of covid-19. Students were meant to shift their physical learning to a full online
learning, which was a challenge for everyone that yielded a fruitful experience for everyone
especially the students themselves. I had to plan and deliver around 30 online lessons on Zoom
meetings every week and encourage the students to join and maintain their academic presence
as if they were in school. Sometimes students were asked to open the cameras and attend face-
to-face which was mostly done during assessments. Students themselves and their parents had
to read and agree on rules and regulations of using online platforms and safeguarding issues, in
order to prevent their kid from putting him/her self in a wrong situation.

During our school PSHE lessons, many of the elements mentioned in the “Education for
connected world” are taught and discussed with students to inform them about how to safely
use the social media and to be able to protect themselves whenever they are in a situation.