10th February was Safer Internet Day, and this year’s theme was all around exploring the safe and responsible uses of AI. The use of AI online has become more and more prevalent, and it’s important that children and young people have the skills and confidence to make safe choices when they are using smart technology.
Our Royal School Manchester Assistive Technology team created a number of resources to support our students with understanding AI and online safety. These cover ways that students can evaluate what they see online, recognise persuasion techniques, and understand what is acceptable online behaviour.
The foundation of this learning is based on the understanding of what what is safe and what is dangerous, starting off with sorting activities featuring real-world scenarios. They also evaluated ‘real’ and ‘not real’, allowing them to consider that just because we see something online, doesn’t mean that it’s true. One activity to demonstrate this was showing students a short film and presenting ‘true or false’ activities. These depicted frames of the story that had been altered, to show that even though the picture is in front of them, the information is inaccurate and has been edited.
Our Online Safety Library Box had information around stranger danger sessions and stories around staying safe online, to teach students how to recognise persuasion techniques. We also had sessions around kind and appropriate behaviour, being responsible, and the importance of being a good friend.
Exploring all of these concepts using real-world scenarios is the key starting point before introducing these in an online context.
This learning is all part of our Digital Learning Framework, which covers online safety, data and computational thinking, interacting and collaborating, citizenship, and creating digital artwork. You can read more about Royal School Manchester’s curriculum here.
