The importance of online safety education can’t be ignored
Today, children in elementary school often have just as much, if not more, technology know-how than adults. But as children’s tech use increases, and as they spend more time online, digital citizenship and safety issues become even more important.
Parents look to teachers to pass knowledge to students, and teachers look to parents to help with the home-school connection and reinforce what students learn in the classroom.
In a survey by AVG Technologies [1], 82 percent of teachers said they think parents rely too much on schools when it comes to educating students about online safety, and 38 percent of teachers also said that their students’ parents don’t know enough about online safety.
(Next page: Students’ online practices)
Of the nearly 1,800 teachers surveyed across the globe, 64 percent said schools should offer better training on using the internet as an educational tool, and 77 percent said that online safety education should be included in curriculum.
Ninety-two percent of teachers said they use online content in class, and 69 percent address online safety occasionally or frequently, but just 28 percent have received formal online safety instruction training.
The global results reveal some interesting online safety education trends.
Internationally:
- 54 percent of teachers in Brazil teach online safety regularly, and 51 percent have been trained for that purpose
- 91 percent of U.K. teachers, compared to 72 percent of teachers overall, said their schools have IT classes, but only 37 percent of U.K. teachers have had formal online safety education training
- 40 percent of U.S. teachers assign homework that requires online resources for completion, compared to 57 percent overall
- 29 percent of Canadian teachers said their students bring their own devices to school, compared to 18 percent globally
- 80 percent of Australian schools have cyberbullying guidelines in place
A 2014 Gaggle survey [2] reveals the extent to which today’s students live, study, and socialize online.
According to the survey, 95 percent of U.S. teens ages 12-17 are online, and when they are:
- 62 percent visit a social network
- 43 percent update a status or check a friend’s status
- 74 percent use the internet via mobile phones
- 52 percent said they have experienced cyberbullying