This morning students in the Middle School had the opportunity to watch a video presentation from The RAP Project about keeping safe online. Mr Doe, Head of Middle School wrote to parents in advance of the session, outlining what the students would encounter:
The title of Friday’s talk, which has been created to be age appropriate to students aged 11-13, is Digital Natives. The presentation is aimed at exploring what young people are doing online. They focus on issues surrounding sexting, cyber bullying, online grooming and early sexualisation through exposure to inappropriate imagery. The talk will ask them to look at their online behaviour and consider how this is influencing their personal expectations, attitudes & body image. Exploring their decision-making skills, the students will be given realistic scenarios and asked to provide solutions. Drawing on the large numbers of studies that link continuous internet access to self-esteem and mental health issues, the presentation will aim to help students to understand the negative as well as the positive aspects of life online. To conclude, they will share practical advice on maintaining a positive digital tattoo, protect privacy, set boundaries & practising discretion & kindness online.
Our students found talk enormously beneficial and we are pleased to share some of their feedback on what they learnt.
“I found the RAP Project presentation on Digital Natives very informative. It highlighted the pressure that young people face in creating their online profile and our damaging view that followers = friends and likes are significant. Whilst social media can be useful for keeping connected and does have some positive uses, a large amount of young people that compare themselves to celebrities such as the Kardashians (as mentioned in the video) don’t realise that these celebrities present what they do, on social media rather than who they are, like most young people. I find it fascinating that we live in a time where we have access to an excess of information yet our usage of social media shows that a lot of people aren’t aware of how to use it in a safe way or the laws that surround inappropriate usage of social media, I am therefore very grateful that we can have these discussions and be educated on this topic.”
“One of the best things about the video was that she gave us an adult’s point of view, and more than that, a parent’s point of view which really helps us understand what goes through our parents’ minds when it comes to what we do online. She also made sure we understood it was all because they want us to be safe and their natural response is worry because they often aren’t as experienced as us when it comes to technology and can’t navigate it as well which puts them at a disadvantage.”
“Deana made me understand that adults are able to sympathise with many of the issues that teens go through everyday. Now I am able to more clearly understand how to stay safe online.”
“Digital Natives showed how this is an issue for our generation, there is no blame on anyone; we have been brought up to have loads of technology in the household; yes social media can have loads of benefits however there are lots of hidden dangers and it is best to be educated about these at a young age. It also struck me how mean our generation is, even having the issue of cyber bullying in the first place. I think what we can take from this video is that we should be kind to each other, support each other and there is always someone you can go to.”
“I found the statistics in the video to be most interesting and insightful. It put into perspective how large of a scale that all these different things are and how damaging they can be.”
