Technology News
Good Online Habits at Home
It’s important to build good online habits together as a family.
Parents and carers play a major role in helping children to develop digital intelligence – the social, emotional and practical skills needed to navigate the online world in a safe and fun way. Think about creating a family technology agreement which outlines the expectations and ways to stay safe at home. Here are some discussion points to help start the conversation:
Kindness
- Ask your child what they would do if they saw someone being bullied online. Who would they tell?
- Ask whether they would say something mean about their friend to their face? How is this different to talking negatively about, or to a friend online?
Healthy Balance
- Encourage your child to stop watching or listening to anything online that affects them negatively.
- Find ways to help your child achieve a healthy balance between their online and offline activities. Decide together how much time your child will spend on their device per day or per
Keeping Safe
- Discuss what consent means and talk about why you need to get permission before taking a picture of someone else and posting it.
- Talk about the types of images that are suitable to share online. What do they consider to be an appropriate or inappropriate image? Who might be able to see the posts online?
- Talk about how to identify a trusted source of information. How do they identify what is fact or fiction?
- Discuss in-app purchases and pop-ups. Your child might not realise that in-app purchases cost money and pop-ups can sometimes contain viruses and malware.
- Discuss what ‘personal information’ means and why it’s important to keep some details private, like a person’s full name, date of birth, contact information and passwords. What is appropriate and inappropriate to share?
- Talk about sharing passwords. Could you make a rule in your house to only share passwords with parents, for example?
- Discuss how sometimes people pretend to be another person online and why they might do that. Discuss why they should only talk to people who they have met offline and actually know.
- Ensure your child only downloads apps and games that you have approved and that are age appropriate. Exploring new apps and games together is a good way to keep lines of communication open.
- Discuss the privacy settings attached to apps and games
- Suggest they ask for help and reassure them that they won’t get into trouble. Identify the trusted people in your child’s life who they could ask for help.
New Student ICT Agreement
If you have not acknowledged (given permission) on the compass event for our new student ICT agreement, could you please ensure you read through this agreement with your child/ren and give permission on this event to acknowledge and agree to the terms of the agreement as soon as possible.
