Crossing Borders – E-privacy

	Social networking websites are increasingly popular among young people. But are users always aware of how to stay safe on the net? How important it is to create a safe profile? How can their privacy be protected online?

Age: Primary and secondary school pupils
Duration: 3 months

Pedagogical Value

ICT Literacy & Knowledge Building

Pupils taking part in the project will have to work in groups and analyse e-privacy and safety aspects of ICT tools. This will help them build their ICT literacy, an important asset today. While they are discovering the possibilities these tools offer, they will also realise potential dangers and come up with ways of avoiding them.

ICT tools in this case will not only be the thematic focus but also the means of achieving cross-border communication and synthesis of the project outcome.

Safety, Privacy and Netiquette

Pupils will be led to reflect on e-privacy and how to manage this when they use online tools that offer a huge potential for public exposure. They will have to reflect on responsibility and solidarity.

Cross-cultural and Cross-border Communication

Pupils will become aware of cultural similarities and differences and find ways of overcoming the latter. By working on internet and mobile safety issues with a partner school from another country, they will also realise the universal character of the chosen topic.

Working in a Group: Planning, Organising, Delivering

Pupils will have to create a project plan for their own class, as well as for the team, and deliver within the given 3-month framework.

Working together with teachers, pupils will not only have to master group collaboration, they will also have to manage working with peers at a distance. For teachers, this will be the ideal occasion to experiment with new teaching methodologies.

Practical Tips

After signing up for the competition and registering at the eTwinning portal (if both partners are in the EU)

• Decide which communication tools to use
• Examine how to use them
• If necessary, register and get an account for each of the tools to be used
• Install all the necessary software, subject to school software and firewall policy
• Decide which language you are going to use with your partner school
• Identify the person(s) who could deal with translating and proofreading tasks
• Set up a work program, using a calendar to plan dates and times for group meetings and exchanges with the partner school
• Decide on how tasks will be shared, create working groups and assign rapporteurs
• Decide on how you will evaluate the material produced

Suggested Thematic Work

You could start by discussing social networking and how it’s used by your pupils. Partner schools could hold a joint brain storming session within the whole group to initiate a discussion/debate. You may decide to work in smaller groups on some of the questions arising, using relevant material. The suggestions below are meant as guidelines.
Let pupils go through all the steps of creating a profile on some of the main social networking sites and note what this process entails:

• What safety concerns do they find? Make a list of them and analyse them in class.
• Ask pupils to create a checklist of points to watch and go through the process of creating a profile again with a critical eye.
• What safety instructions are available on social networking sites? Do pupils think they are adequate?
• How do your pupils define privacy?
• What does private vs. public information mean to them?
• How easily do they share intimate information about themselves online and offline?
• How do you interact online and how do users deal with the issue of privacy when they are members of an online community?

Get the class to come up with examples that can illustrate the impact of giving out private information on internet.

Have pupils examine their contacts with community members in a broader social context: do they see these acquaintances as simply other users, or more as family or friends. How does this influence their online behaviour? What can grown ups, family and schools do to make communication in social networking sites safer?

Workshop Ideas

Visit one or two popular social networking sites with your pupils. Get them to set up a profile or check out a profile they have previously set up:

• Do they feel comfortable showing their online profile (which can be seen by millions of users worldwide) to classmates?

Have them analyse their profile against the checklist they developed earlier. Is their profile really “safe”?:

• Could it attract unwanted attention?
• Does it give away any information that should be “private”?
• Have they included pictures, and if so, what was their intention in posting these pictures?

Alternatively, the class can go through the same procedure examining the profile of someone they don’t know:

• How do images impact on the way people socialise online?
• Is the “online” world and different to the “offline” world in this respect?

Set up a rating system to rate the degree of private information that people give online, and test it on a random sample:

• What is the result?
• How do you explain these findings?

Surf on a social networking site for 20-30 minutes and note surfing patterns:

• What attracts pupils’ interest and what directs their actions?
• Discuss the different surfing patterns within the group

Before your pupils start constructing their awareness material, make sure they clearly define their target audience so that their material will be structured suitably.

	Publicēts :	11/10/2006

	Pēdējo reizi mainīts :	22/06/2007

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