How Does
The School Curriculum Help?
The
school curriculum requires the students to be educated on the strategies of
cyber safety as well as the ethical and social issues associated with being a
digital citizen.
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What is
required by teachers?
Teachers are required to:
Demonstrate an understanding of the relevant issues and the strategies
available to support the safe, responsible and ethical use of ICT in learning
and teaching.
Demonstrate
understanding of safe, legal, and ethical use of digital resources and tools,
including cyber safety practices, respect for copyright, intellectual property,
and the appropriate documentation of sources.[1]
What does
this mean?
Students
will be provided with situations where they can discuss and utilise different
strategies to handle safety issues with technology, such as the opening of
unknown emails and webpages. This topic itself is incredibly important, and
will remain as a topic of discussion throughout all aspects of the curriculum.
e.g. If a
student is researching for a poster on the Olympics, and an unreliable looking
webpage attempts to redirect them to another location, the skills students have
gathered in their ICT topics will help them handle the situation appropriately.
Students
will also learn about the usage of digital resources and tools, teaching them
the importance of copyright, referencing of resources. In addition to the basics, students will investigate cyber safety
practices through understanding intellectual property, and the understanding
that their unique works are automatically copyrighted.
Just
how important is it?
Incredibly!
The usage
of digital resources and technology are in no way limited to a student’s life
in school - It is something they will require for their entire life. The
earlier a student learns the details and limitations surrounding the usage in
technology, the earlier they can apply their understanding into different
curriculum topics through research and appropriate documentation of their findings.
[1] Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership
(2012) ‘National Professional Standards for Teachers – ICT Elaborations’
Accessed 06/09/2012
<
http://acce.edu.au/sites/acce.edu.au/files/TTF%20-%20Graduate%20Teacher%20Standards%20-% 20ICT%20 Elaborations%20-%20200411.pdf>