Tuesday 11th February saw the celebration of Safer Internet Day across the world in over 170 countries. The theme of this year’s campaign in the UK was ‘Free to be me: Exploring identity online’, encouraging young people to explore how they manage their online identity, and how the internet shapes how they think of themselves and others.
We asked Bella, one of our Digital Champions, a few questions around the theme and she provided some enlightening and insightful responses which you can find below.
1) Why is it important for all young people to be free to be themselves online?
“For many young people, particularly as the generational divide between our and our parents’ generations widens, access to the internet can equal a person’s access to certain safe spaces that they would not be able to access ‘in real life’. This means something, and whether or not a person feels comfortable in a certain community online should be the qualifier for it allowing young people to ‘be themselves’. These spaces should be commended for accommodating people regardless of race, sexuality etc.”
2) Why is it important to have different groups represented online? Why is online representation important?
“The intense diversity of some sites, such as Tumblr and Instagram, really helps to confront and challenge people’s opinions and understandings of the world where in their current situation offline they may not be. Issues that do not pertain to certain people are still raised by others online, and therefore those people learn something valuable about the struggles and the successes of other communities – and therefore the importance for diversity and the concept of ‘free and equal’ online. Representation online is so critical in my own experience because LGBTQ+ folks in my area are not so common publicly – to be presented with people that are ‘like you’ online, regardless of what that means to an individual, provides a critically important sense of validation and strips away the isolation many feel in their offline situations. This is why visible and healthy representation must be paramount.”
3) What is the best thing about diversity online? What is the worst thing about diversity online?
“The best thing (for me personally): the communities that form around aspects of diversity, particularly when those aspects are not universally or widely celebrated offline. The internet is so critical for providing (particularly) young people with a set of others like them whom they can communicate with and share their experiences with, and anonymously, if need be. These communities build up a validating sense of self worth for those who might otherwise be lacking it.
The worst thing (for me personally): In the quest for diversity, which, today, particularly with regard to sexuality, tends to produce more views/clicks, things like ‘queer-baiting’ have come into existence, whereby shows etc. falsely advertise inclusion and tolerance in order to draw in a subset of the population interested by this. The use of diversity as a weak and commercial factor in media is increasingly becoming a problem; I believe distinctions should be made for showwriters and media executives between healthy and unhealthy representation in order to bate this problem in the future.”
4) What is your one wish for the future of the internet?
“I hope we are able to overcome this idea that hate speech is a quality that should not be dismantled online because of the policy of freedom of speech. I’m aware that a number of social media sites (i.e. Twitter) have removed a considerable amount of ‘hate speech’ content under cyber-laws and legislation, and have received criticism from radical communities which resent the idea of restriction of certain materials – and while freedom of speech in a political sense is incredibly important, I believe that comfortable diversity for the large majority cannot be achieved until hate speech and free speech are separated properly by legislation and social media policy.”
5) If you could tell parents, teachers, and the internet industry one thing about online identity, what would it be?
“It is so important to encourage children and young people to develop a healthy online presence early, and, perhaps even more so, to put forward a level of trust in letting them do this. ‘Watcher’ apps are increasingly popular and they should not be underestimated in the sense that they do make online identity a more restricted concept if people feel as though they cannot express themselves, and in some cases, this is damaging to a person’s ability to socialise. Children and young people might misrepresent themselves a little bit online, but it is critical that ‘healthy identity’ is promoted and taught; that is, cultivating an image that you feel comfortable with, while also understanding there are limits.”
Thank you, Bella, for your passion for this topic and for being so open with your thoughts. Find out more about our Digital Champions here and take a look at their plans for the year ahead as well as more information about their role within the programme here.
Welcome to the February post of our monthly achievements and updates blog. Here we congratulate schools who have completed their training over the past month and share good news stories from Digital Leader schools.
Well done to the Digital Leader teams from the following schools who have recently completed their online training!
Anderton Park Primary
Caldershaw Primary School
Christ Church CE (VC) Primary – 2nd cohort!
Christ the King RC Primary School – 2nd cohort!
Foxhills Junior School
Frogmore Junior School – 3rd cohort!
Kinsley Primary School – 2nd cohort!
Our Lady and St Rose of Lima Primary School – 2nd cohort!
Rochester Independent College – 2nd cohort!
St. Louise’s Comprehensive College
St Olave’s Prep School
Safer Internet Day is in just a few days, on Tuesday 11th February. Make sure that your school has signed up as a supporter for the day. Download the education packs here if you need some last minute activity ideas for the day and make sure to use the social media guide to engage in the social media campaign on the day. We can’t wait to see what Digital Leaders across the country do for Safer Internet Day 2020. Make sure to tweet @ChildnetDL@UK_SIC so we can see what your team are doing on the day and retweet you!
Digital Leader School Visits
Over the past month the Childnet Digital Leaders team visited St. Martins School in Derby and Penwortham Primary School in London to talk to their Digital Leader teams and find out more about what they are doing in in their roles at school.
St. Martin’s School
We visited St Martin’s School along with Phoebe and Kate from the Childnet Education team and were very happy to be involved in the assembly where the team were announced to the whole school! Siobhán was able to present the school with two certificates in the assembly and they received their Digital Leaders badges also. Well done to the team for completing the training, we are impressed with what they have already accomplished such as making a game with internet safety messages as well as a leaflet for all parents/carers. Thank you to the Digital Leaders and their teacher, Sam, for welcoming us to their school. Take a look at our blog post to find out more about our visit and see the fantastic leaflet that the St. Martins’ Digital Leaders created.
Penwortham Primary School
We visited Penwortham Primary School Digital Leaders last month and really enjoyed hearing about their exciting plans for the future. They shared their ideas for the year with Charlotte, including their plan to have a ‘Digital Leaders Day,’ which would be a day to allow pupils to try out the role of being a Digital Leader before applying. What a brilliant idea! One of the Digital Leaders had also created a wonderful poster for Safer Internet Day which included a poem they had written:
‘Be safe,
Be yourself,
Be you,
Not someone else.’
Take a look at our blog post to read the fantastic article that the Penwortham Primary School Digital Leaders wrote for their school newsletter. Thank you to the Digital Leaders for sharing your thoughts and ideas with us and Ms Berner and Ms Shipsey for hosting us.
We love visiting Digital Leader teams in action, if your team would like a visit then please get in touch at [email protected].
We are looking forward to working with Digital Leader teams throughout 2020 and really excited to see what Digital Leaders achieve this year! Please share with us what your Digital Leaders team have been up to. Email [email protected] or tweet us @ChildnetDL#ChildnetDL to be included in the next update!
These pages contain tips, advice and resources to help young people and their families enjoy technology and the internet together in a safe and positive way. We encourage Digital Leaders to share these top tips for Safer Internet Day 2020.
Top Tips for children and young people
These pages include top tips about staying safe as well as the ways young people can express their identity online and help create an internet where everyone is free to be themselves.
The advice pages for young people are split into three age appropriate sections:
The top tips for 3-7 year olds centre around being proud to be yourself, the things you can do online, as well as where young people can go if they need help.
The top tips for 7-11s look at being proud to be different, respecting others and expecting respect yourself, and what they can do if they need help online.
The top tips for 11-18s look at how young people can embrace and support difference online, as well as the way that young people can use the internet to explore and find out more information.
These tips are a great way to ensure that parents and carers are supporting their children and giving them the tools to stay safe and positive online. They highlight ways to have a conversation, take a balanced approach and to make use of the tools available.
There are also accompanying films and resources that parents can use to explore online safety this Safer Internet Day.
Further resources you can use
We have created Education Packs, which are tailored made for 3-7s, 7-11s, 11-14s, 14-18s and parents and carers, along with some guidance for educators. Available in English and Welsh these free packs include lesson plans, posters, presentations, activities and more!
Our Safer Internet Day films have been produced to complement the Safer Internet Day Education Packs. The films act as an extension of the packs and as such aim to be conversation starters around the topic of identity online.
To keep up to date with the latest Safer Internet Day news you can:
Join the UK wide conversation with the #SaferInternetDay and #freetobe hashtags
We can’t wait to see what Digital Leaders get up to on Safer Internet Day and the creative ways that they celebrate. Let us know what your Digital Leader team get up to for Safer Internet Day 2020 on twitter @ChildnetDL#ChildnetDL.