Students Are Doing it For Themselves!
Ivanhoe has introduced a new Cyber Safety student driven initiative called the Cyber Angels. Students themselves want to ensure that their peers are using Social Media appropriately and safely. They are preparing some guidelines that all students will help to write and agree to abide by. Using the School’s Social Media Policy as a foundation this group aims to:
- Educate the School community about the appropriate and positive use of Social Media;
- Develop a Social Media Code of Ethics written by Students for Students;
- Support Parents in their knowledge and understanding of Students’ use of Social Media;
- Promote the beneficial aspects of Social Media in a Student’s School life.
Members of the Angels wrote the following post about their plans:
The Social Media Code of Ethics
The group is affectionately known, as the Angels, and we began meeting this year. Our first role is to create a Student Code of Ethics for the use of Social Media. The Angel group will collect the opinions of Students and write the Code so that it is a Code written with the Student Voice.
The Code will act as a Guideline for all Students so that they have a positive engagement with Social Media and the online environment. We feel that Social Media can be powerful when used to self-educate, create and inspire; learning new things or inspiring others is an easy task when using the Social Media that is available to us today.
Cyberbullying
On the flip side, however, Cyberbullying is a current issue within our society. Through the Angels weekly meetings we are looking at ways to counteract Cyberbullying and the ways Social Media itself can be used to prevent these negative behaviours. Many social networks, such as Facebook, offer privacy options which can be adjusted to suit the user. We want to encourage personal responsibility when engaging with these technologies; the Code of Ethics is a start towards this goal.
Social Media and Parents
Going forward we would like Parents to be involved with this new initiative helping them to see the positive possibilities of the online world which will be a native environment for ours and future generations. The Angels hope to assist in bridging the divide between Parent understanding and student use of modern social technology.
This small group will be engaging with the larger Student community in coming months getting feedback and input into what will be their Code of Ethics. With this in mind we encourage the community to approach the Angels with questions or ideas;
We look forward to working with Teachers, Students and Parents to make our online world a safe and positive one.
