The videos highlighted 5 main issues that students may face in the cyber world domain. The 2 issues that stood out for me were the balanced use of ICT and cyber-bullying which primary school students would be more prone too. A balanced use of ICT means to get the most out of the benefits of the internet and managing the risks. This stems from the ability to self-regulate how much one spends on the internet, while not compromising interactions in real life. There is a time and place for online and offline activities but primary school students may lack the maturity and discipline to manage an appropriate balance. Moreover, they may be less able to discern what is healthy and undesirable, thus the need for a parental figure to intervene and educate them on the risks out there. Cyber-bullying is also a prevalent issue that our students face. One in five primary school children have reported being "cyber bullied and I believe that numbers are even higher but they tend to go unreported for fear of being identified. To some extent, the emotional trauma suffered may be more damaging than physical ones as negative comments on social media have the power to reinforce whatever negative thoughts a person might have, which makes it more difficult to cope. Primary school students may not be able to deal with the situation in a positive manner and hence may respond to distress by self-harming or develop other mental issues that go unnoticed.

 

As teachers, we are called to stay ahead of technological trends to anticipate these issues that our students may face. I feel that this is crucial to help us to empathize to our students needs and behaviours through our conversations with them. We should also be well-informed with the various help hotlines to refer our students to and advise them sufficiently to seek professional help. The use of case of case studies and scenarios would be a good classroom activity to do to relate real life threats to our students and realize the risks involved. This is also a good avenue to impart practical skills to help them safeguard themselves, teach values such as respect and responsibility and to infuse critical thinking skills whenever they engage with the internet. I found the advice to understand our students’ intrinsic motivations to be very insightful. The importance of a teacher’s role to listen, empathize and understand our students’ motivations – need for achievement, recognition, love and acceptance, can be diverted to healthier and more productive activities which the teacher can plan and tailor to in and outside the classroom. It was also a good reminder for me that teachers have to work alongside the community (eg. parents, peers, schools) to create a strong and holistic social system to educate our students. This ensures that what is being taught in the classroom is also supported and reinforced back at home, which creates better accountability and supervision of our students’ online behaviours.

 

Children these days are very tech savvy and they use a lot of technology in their everyday life. Hence it is crucial for us to ensure our students learn to have a balanced use of ICT. They should monitor the time spent in the digital online world vs the real- world. Examples of red flag indications are: having too much interactions in the online world through video games and online platforms, as compared to real life, addiction to video games, restlessness/ aggressive/hostile/ irritable behavior when not using ICT, doing extreme things just to use ICT (ie playing truancy, telling lies about their online usage). These are important signs of the overuse of ICT which teachers should know.

 

Online identity and expression is also another problem that I see amongst primary school children. Given their age and maturity level, they may not know the consequences of revealing personal information (like phone numbers, home address) on such a public platform. This will pose danger to the safety of our students.

 

As educators, we need to teach our students skills to navigate in both the online world and real world so that they can learn to self-regulate their use of ICT without being too drawn into it. Critical thinking skills should also be imparted to students, so that they will use their discretion to stay safe while using ICT. Teachers will also need to work closely with parents to help monitor student’s behavior and habits which might be a sign of overusing technology or even problems like cyber-bullying. As teachers, we should be a good role model and preach good values and attitudes towards the use of technology. Staying abreast of the latest youth trends will also allow us to stay on top of the new risks that our students are facing with technology.