Online safety: What do our students need to know?
Sebah Al-AliIf you’re following current news, you’ll know that electronic privacy and security is a hot topic these days as a columnist got hacked while use public WiFi, and Apple is legally battling the FBI. While these issues might not necessarily relate directly to our students, they do highlight the importance of ensuring our students are aware of online security basics and of what they need to do to maintain their privacy… and others’ privacy.
There are many online privacy and safety issues to consider and discuss in class. However, given our students’ environments and habits, it is vital that we highlight a few safety basics that might seem common sense to us, but are not necessarily known to our students.
- Sharing personal information online must be done with caution. Your name, address, phone numbers, and locations can be used by hackers to gain access to your accounts.
- When you post pictures and videos of yourself, keep in mind that they might be shared publicly with others… even if your account is private. Someone might inappropriately share your content or show it to others.
- Never share your password with ANYONE! Any kind of password is meant to be for you, and you only. Some students got into a lot of trouble because they shared their passwords with their friends.
- Before you forward any kind of online information (an email, a picture, a video, etc), ask yourself: Do I have the right to share this information with the public? Does the person who sent this information allow that?
- If you’re using a public device or someone else’s device, do not forget to sign out of your accounts before leaving.
- Only download apps and software from a secure trusted source. Hacked programs might take your personal information and hack into your device.
In addition to these pointers, if you’d like to plan a lesson or class activity discussing online privacy and safety, there are many resources online to help you do that. Here are a few:
- Top Tips On Internet Safety For Kids and Parents
- Privacy and Internet Life: Lesson Plan for Intermediate Classrooms (PDF)
- Teaching privacy in the internet age
- What’s The Big Deal About Internet Privacy? (PDF, iBook, and Nearpod)
- Internet safety tips for kids (video)
- Top Ten Internet Safety Rules (video)
- Dos and Don’ts when using social networks (video)
- Top Ten Internet Safety Rules (video)
- Safe Web Surfing: Top Tips for Kids and Teens Online (video)
- Don’t Be Hacker Bait: Do This One-Hour Security Drill
- 10 ways schools are teaching internet safety
