The other day, I was talking to a friend and fellow teacher about e-safety. Which I guess may make us a bit ‘sad’ in that we cannot find anything other than education and tech to talk about in our spare time!
Anyway, in this conversation I recall saying that we didn’t have e-safety in my day. That not only made me sound like an old man but it also made me think what we used to have when I was a pupil. The nearest thing I could think of was Road Safety.
At that point, something suddenly clicked in my head, thankfully it wasn’t too serious do I didn’t have to see a doctor. It’s important to teach road safety so that children know how to avoid having accidents in the road. However, the effects of being run down by a vehicle on the road are much the same, serious injury or death, whether you are an adult or a child. Even adults have to observe road safety if they want to stay alive.
Surely the same applies to e-safety? The adverse effects of internet use can affect adults as well as children, so surely any e-safety policy and practices in a school should apply to adults just as much as to children? Surely, too, e-safety doesn’t only apply while in school, it must be true when working on computers from home or when mobile? So why is it that we consider e-safety to be something we just teach children?
Now, you may say, that adults have free will or freedom of choice and can choose to ignore e-safety advice if they wish. Well, that might be true but surely if they are going to choose to ignore it, they still need to know or be aware of the potential dangers?
