Risk taking is a natural part of children’s lives. They take risks in order to grow, including trying new activities, generating new ideas, and experimenting with new roles. However, they can also find themselves in trouble with their risk taking. Concern over such risky behaviors has led to the creation of many types of intervention. Some of these interventions have attempted to manipulate kids/teens beliefs, values and behaviors hoping to get them to act more cautiously. Other interventions have attempted to improve their stability to make sensible decisions, hoping to get them to make wise choices on their own. Developing general decision-making skills enables kids and teens to protect themselves in many situations—both online and in the physical world.
Many programs have been developed by various organizations to help American youth avoid online hazards. Combating the growing epidemic of online youth victimization has become a national concern after several high profile cases of Internet-based abductions and murders were brought to the media spotlight in recent years. The FBI says that besides Homeland Security issues, child pornography and sexual exploitation of children through online means are the most significant crime problems that it confronts. The difference between i-SAFE and these other programs lies in the fact that active learning is the primary mode of the i-SAFE Program.
The Difference in Active Learning Lessons
The i-SAFE Inc. Safe Schools Education Initiative and Outreach Program focuses on proactively educating and empowering students to safely and responsibly take control of their Internet experiences. The i-SAFE Program encourages the extension of valuable e-Safety knowledge and skills throughout students’ schools and communities. The i-SAFE Program utilizes Best Practices in education to create an active, real-life atmosphere and to provide real experiences to the hazards and consequences of risky or inappropriate online behavior—experiences that are more difficult to acquire through solely Web-based learning modalities.
From 2002 to the present, i-SAFE Inc. has provided interactive e-Safety lessons to students in their own classrooms and administered pre and post-assessment surveys to measure the effectiveness of the i-SAFE curriculum.
The i-SAFE curriculum is designed to foster active participation between students and their teachers through classroom discussions and cooperative group-learning activities. Integral to each lesson at all grade levels is the incorporation of an empowerment activity, which provides students with opportunities to share what they have learned about e-Safety with their peers, their families, and other community members. In this way, students internalize and take ownership of the concepts learned.
The i-SAFE e-Safety curriculum is correlated with each of the National Educational Technology Standards for Students (NETS) published by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). Integrating the i-SAFE curriculum with these (and other) standards provides teachers, technology planners, teacher preparation institutions, and educational decision-makers with frameworks to establish enriched learning environments supported by technology. For more information about the i-SAFE Curriculum lessons, please visit www.isafe.org and enter the Educators area on the Web site.
i-SAFE Inc. is committed to the process of Continuous Quality Improvement (CQI) in the delivery of its e-Safety education curriculum. In pursuit of CQI, i-SAFE Inc. has developed assessments that poll students’ current Internet activities and attitudes (e.g., pre-assessments) as well as the degree to which students are willing to embrace the concepts taught and shared in the e-Safety lessons (e.g., post-assessments).
i-SAFE Assessments and Surveys: The Basis for the Analysis
The results of the i-SAFE assessments, administered prior to the first lesson, at the conclusion of the final lesson, and three to six weeks after the conclusion of the final lesson, are from a nationwide sample. Students represent grades 5-12, although the majority of responses are from grades 5-8, since those grade levels are the primary focus for implementation of the i-SAFE curricula.
A Parent Survey is distributed as an integral part of the i-SAFE curriculum. It is designed and incorporated into the Predator Identification lessons to encourage students to involve their parents in understanding the challenges that students face while online. It is an exercise in one of the lessons that the students are asked to take home to their parents. The survey is intended to promote communication between the parent and student about e-Safety as well as provide i-SAFE with data regarding parents’ attitudes on e- Safety and their knowledge (or beliefs) relative to their children’s online activities.
The survey has been administered throughout the year (September 2006 to April 2007) at the same time schools delivered our curriculum to the students. Approximately 3600 parents participated in the online surveys. The parent survey is available online for parents of children who participate in i-SAFE assessments, as well as any other interested parent.
The pre-assessments provide i-SAFE with a dynamic resource that helps enable the curriculum to stay up-to-date with students’ needs and ever-changing technology. Data generated by the assessments also becomes a tool in promoting the need for e-Safety among parents, teachers, and community leaders. The post-assessments focus on behavioral and attitude changes of students resulting from the curriculum, which helps to gauge the effectiveness of the i-SAFE program from students’ perspectives. The assessments are more concerned with gathering information regarding long-term e-Safety practices (behavior based) than whether or not a student can recall facts from the i-SAFE lessons (knowledge based).
The lessons and related post-assessments focus on three (3) key concepts:
Core Knowledge: Core concepts, vocabulary, skills, and knowledge that give students a foundation on which to build.
Self-Efficacy: The level of confidence that a student has in implementing the safe Internet practices and/or behavior.
Reasoned Action: Students’ intentions to embrace e-Safety practices. (According to this perspective, the most important determinant of an individual’s behavior is his/her intent and rationale to perform the behavior. We want students to understand how to make reasoned decisions and choices about where they go and what they do on the Internet, and to understand the consequences of their Internet behavior.)
In order to reinforce a student’s buy in, or willingness to embrace the i-SAFE message, an outcomes assessment is administered three to six weeks after completion of the i-SAFE curriculum. This assessment asks specifically what actions students have taken and gauges whether or not their approach to e-Safety is improving, and whether they have exhibited a behavioral change as a result of the e-Safety information provided by i-SAFE Inc.
Outcomes Assessment Figures
IMPACT OF THE i-SAFE CURRICULUM ON STUDENTS*
95% of 3-4 graders agree that they should get permission from their parents before filling out online forms, meeting Internet friends, sharing photos, home address or the names of their schools.
90% of 3-12 grade students have indicated that they plan to discuss e-Safety with their parents, siblings and/ or friends.
85% of students in grades 3-12 stated an intention to be more careful about where they go and what they do on the Internet.
69% of 5-8 graders have reported that they will not accept illegally copied music from friends in the future.
65% of grade 3-12 students indicated that they will be more careful about sharing personal information on the Internet.
55% of middle and high school students indicated that they would definitely credit to the author/owner for any schoolwork-related information they get from the Internet.
*Survey taken within 3-6 weeks of completion of the i-SAFE curriculum. Over 46,000 (grades 3-12) participated from all 50 states.
Results show that, as a result of the information learned through the active i-SAFE Curriculum lessons, students are consciously making an effort to increase their safety online. They want to increase communication between themselves and their friends or parents, and they have taken the initiative to check whether they needed to modify their online behavior because of the information they learned from i-SAFE.
Internet Generation Gap
Why is the Generation Gap Important?
The Evolution of Predators
Dangers Kids and Teens Face Online
e-Safety for the Youth of America (You are Here)
Communication is the Key
Computers in the Bedroom
photo by:
archie4oz 
10 Ways to Spice Up Your Barbecue
Summer Reading
Happy Graduation
Add your own comment