Hold On, the Teacher's Looking

 Cyber safety, huh. 

There's one thing that comes to my mind about cyber safety in school, and it's a traumatizing story. 

So, here's what happened. On the first day that we were allowed to use Surface Pros, our teacher enlightened us with "Make sure to use technology appropriately, and I mean - don't go looking at inappropriate and untrustworthy sites and take care of the device..." 

And then... "Also, I can see what you are all doing."

I took that seriously as a sixth grader. Oh, was I intimidated? Even as someone who strongly followed the rules and behaved as maturely as possible, I was facing this paranoia that I might accidentally come across something incriminating in the eyes of my teacher. I'm personally conflicted about the effectiveness of this scare tactic as it somehow worked but also built distrust and unease when using technology. However, if I reflect on our class as a whole, this didn't work at all. Many of my peers found class time more enjoyable when spent playing online games on whatever sites they could find. Full disclosure: I also played Cool Math Games (only when I completed my work). 

There's another thing that was in place: web filters. I would do research for assignments and find some sites inaccessible when using technology from the school. The screen would display 'restricted access.' I learned from someone that the devices are programmed that way by the school division IT so that tech is appropriately used by students. Honestly, I don't know much about tech and programming so if anyone can attest or refute this fact, that would be great to know for the future. 

© Reynold's School District - Google Images

About cyber safety approaches that are most helpful, I don't think I have any concrete idea. I guess giving students a proper and respectful rundown on how to use technology for educative purposes is a good way to start. Tackle things like online privacy, malware and viruses, device care, and phishing. 

Even as teachers, we should be cautious and responsible with our digital citizenship. With oaths to be role models and professionals, there are behaviors related to tech that do not fly with codes of conduct. How we portray ourselves online affects our professional lives, and I'm likely not the only one to have witnessed this in action or heard about situations like it. 




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