Relationships and respect online

As the focus on Safer Internet Day this year was relationships and respect, we saw it fitting to host a webinar on online safety with focus on these topics. The webinar took place on the 7^th of March and for those of you who could not make it we are happy to share the content below.

Relationships and respect online is not only about what can happen to us online, but also about how we can all contribute to make the internet a better place. During the last few years, and especially during the pandemic, we have seen a huge uptake in the use of online tools and resources amongst primary-aged children. Many of these tools are unregulated and age inappropriate but we can understand their growth and appeal to children. During the pandemic it was understandable that many children maintained their friendships online. Indeed many of us probably encouraged this as a way for our children to stay in touch with friends and family to improve both connectivity and positivity in the bleakest of time – and it’s not a bad thing, we just need to be aware of how to help support the learning opportunities they can provide, and how to help guide online behavior.

What are children learning online?

Are these online resources providing the correct tools and positivity for other interactions in life? We teach respect and how to behave offline every day by modelling, intervening and encouraging positive behaviour, but we need to do the same for children’s online relationships too.  We all know that you cannot teach just by telling – children will need to interact and explore themselves, they require first-hand experience so we need tools that allow us, as parents and teachers to take part in online relationship building, and step in where needed.

DB Primary provides teachers with those tools, allowing them to be part of, and monitor and intervene in online interactions between children. It will also provide opportunities to talk more in depth about what is good online behaviour and how anything published online can have consequences.

Web wizards scheme of word

This scheme of work is created by us to support schools in delivering the knowledge, skills and understanding to primary-aged children on how to stay safe online and contribute positively as effective digital citizens. It offers children firsthand experience of online communications and collaboration.

Our Learning Library activities offers a bank of resources that are self-marking and instantly assignable. These activities include forum, blog and chatroom fact files – giving a general understanding of the tools and how to use them.

Blogs

All users of DB Primary will have a personal blog. Teachers can also easily implement class or community blogs, and they can all be moderated as needed. The blogs provide a great firsthand experience for children on their behavior, and the consequences of any feedback they are likely to receive. Both positive and negative feedback can affect the sender and receiver and that is a great topic of discussion. Furthermore, blogs will teach children how to publish content online, and the understanding of how that content can lead to new friendships based on similar interest, as well as comments that might not always be positive – and how we deal with that. It’s also important to learn that content deleted is not always forgotten.

Forums

This is a great place for debates, and this should be encouraged. In conversation where children might not agree with each other it’s important to understand that we still need to be respectful and use a tone that is acceptable. It should also teach children how to spot when someone is upset and thereby how to correct their own or others behavior.

Emails

The internal email tool in DB Primary will teach how to communicate differently depending on who children are contacting. How, by changing the tone an email it can be received differently. It’s important to understand how to communicate online in order for one’s communication to be read as it was intended.

Instant messaging

Our last tool that teaches communication and collaboration with DB Primary is instant messaging. It can be a fantastic tool for the right type of communication, and again, it will highlight the differences in tone of voice and content depending on whom one is communicating with. This too can be moderated by staff, and completely turned off if needed.

We hope that you use the tools listed to help teach online safety, relationships and respect. If you would like a deeper dive into any of these functions – or if you are not yet a DB Primary customer but would like to know more then please contact us.