Good response to request for pilot centres

So far, 24 centres have come forward to volunteer to pilot the new Internet Safety qualification. There's a good mix of centres including schools, colleges and training centres. The qualification looks particularly popular with S1/S2 pupils since several of the pilot centres indicated their intention to offer it to this group.

The pilot centres will be provided with digital teaching and learning material, and access to an online assessment bank. This qualification is part of SQA's E-only initiative so paper materials will not be provided. However, the unit itself will be available to any centre from August.

We haven't yet made a final decision about pilot centres and there's still time to volunteer. Contact Derek McFarlane if you're interested.

Over 50 million Americans visit MySpace

Net companies pledge child porn crackdown

Pilot centres wanted

I am in the process of writing to centres to ask for volunteers to pilot the Internet Safety unit. But you don't need to wait for the letter to arrive since you can contact Derek McFarlane if you want to be involved in delivering this unit.

A key aspect of this project relates to innovative ways to teach and assess the unit and I'm looking for a number of pilot centres to test the learning and assessment material, which will be supplied in digital format (consisting of HTML teaching materials and an item bank of questions for formative and summative use).

At this stage, I'm only looking for expressions of interest - not commitments (on either side). So please contact Derek by e-mail if you're interested in becoming involved in the pilot.

New type of malware

The BBC reports on a new type of malware called ransomware.

Cyberbullying

Sunday's Times newspaper carried a story on cyber-bullying (which features in the Internet Safety unit!).

Working weekend

I'm just back from a working weekend in Stirling where a team of writers produced the assessments for the Internet Safety unit.

The work was pretty intensive. From Friday evening to Monday afternoon, the team produced over 200 questions for Outcomes 1-3 and developed an assessment for Outcome 4. I was particularly pleased at the multiple choice questions. Not only were a very large number produced - but they were high quality questions too.

These questions will be added to an item bank which will be used as the basis of an online assessment system for this Unit.

Final version of unit specification

Thanks to everyone who responded to my invitation to comment on the draft unit spec.

I've now made some changes to the unit and I think that it's much improved. Here is the final version. Note that it is not yet numbered and still has the "draft" watermark. You can locate the changes by comparing this version to the previous version.

I'll now arrange for the unit to be published and added to SQA's list of qualifications. It will be available to (all) centres from August. But I'll be looking for centres to pilot the "e-only" approach to the unit shortly.

Draft unit specification is now available for comment

A draft unit specification [DOC] is now available for comment. The writing team would appreciate comments via this blog.

First meeting of the Steering Group

The Steering Group for this project met for the first time yesterday. Representatives of the BBC, Learning & Teaching Scotland, Scottish libraries, Strathclyde Police attended along with school and college representatives. It was a very positive meeting with support for developments to date and an endorsement of the planned future action.

There was a strong consensus around the general approach that should be embodied within the qualification and associated materials -- education not prohibition. It was noted that many centres often banned access to many Internet resources but it was felt that this simply transferred the problem to outside of school - where pupils often had unrestricted access at home or Internet cafes or (increasingly) on mobile devices. So the qualification should seek to educate users to use the Internet responsibly rather than attempting to control access.

Survey results are now available

Over 500 people completed the online survey - which means that we can have a lot of confidence in the results. The main points of interest are:

• 95% of respondents were "somewhat" or "very" concerned about Internet safety
• 80% of centres had an Internet safety policy but...
• one third of those centres "sometimes" or "never" enforced it
• 40% of centres provided some form of Internet safety training but...
• this was "informal" in 80% of those centres.

The main areas of concern among respondents were:

• downloading inappropriate material
• accessing inappropriate material
• making inappropriate friendships.

I was very pleased that over 90% of respondents were interested in a qualification in this area - and most respondents wanted it at SCQF level 4 for lower school (S1-S3) pupils.

The proposed qualification will be revised to reflect these findings. A draft version of the unit specification will be available later this week.

Social networks

Techweb reports that almost half of Internet users visited a social networking site last month. Websites such as MySpace and Faceparty have become incredibly popular among young adults. Some concerns have been expressed about the use of such sites although social networking looks like it will continue to grow.

Teachers lack knowledge on internet safety, report reveals

Teachers feel uneducated about protecting children from inappropriate websites and do not know who they should to turn to for advice, new research reveals. More.

I was surprised at the report's claim that "the largest group of viewers of internet pornography was children aged 12 to 17".

Online resources

One of the more interesting parts of this project is the opportunity to review online resources relating to Internet safety. I've come across a large number of websites, some based in the UK and some international.

The BBC has a large number of online resources such as ChatGuide, organisations such as BT and Microsoft sponsor more technical information such as Get Safe Online, some sites provide specific advice to particular users such as Yahoo's Parents' Guide, and the Children's Charity provides a useful Internet safety FAQ.

International sites of note include the Australian government's NetAlert service and the Oklahoma Police Department's comprehensive guide to identity theft.

Let me know (by posting a comment here or sending me an e-mail) if you know of any other useful online resources.

Large response to survey

This is the second week of the Internet safety survey and so far almost 500 people have completed the questionnaire. The interim results make interesting reading with 96% of respondents being "somewhat" or "very" worried about Internet safety. A particularly gratifying statistic for me was that 91% of people were interested in offering a qualification in this area.

The survey closes on Friday. I'll share the results once the survey is closed.

Steering Group is complete

I've spent the last couple of weeks assembling a Steering Group to guide this project and the membership is now complete. I'm delighted with the quality of the Group with representatives of schools and colleges, and individuals representing national organisations such as the BBC, British Telecom, Learning & Teaching Scotland, Microsoft, Scottish Libraries Information Council and Strathclyde Police. I am particularly pleased to have a representative of Children's Charities for Internet Safety on-board.

The first meeting of the Steering Group will take place in the next couple of weeks.

Letter sent to all centres

A letter has been sent to all centres today. The letter explains what this project is about and also outlines the expected timescales. It was sent to all schools, colleges, libraries and some other SQA centres.

Internet safety survey is now ready

An important aspect of this project is to get feedback from practitioners. To that end, I've created a short online survey to gauge your attitude towards Internet safety and to find out more about the Internet facilites that your students can use.

The survey should take less than 10 minutes to complete. A high response rate is important if the results are to be used to affect developments so I would appreciate if you would take a few minutes to complete the survey. It can be found here. Thanks in anticipation.

Online survey

In addition to the expert guidance that the Steering Group can provide, I am working on an online survey to gauge the views of teachers, lecturers, librarians and others with an interest in this topic. The survey will be available soon.

Steering Group taking shape

The Internet Safety project is a collaborative endevour and I'm currently working on assembling a Steering Group to guide developments. Already, Learning & Teaching Scotland, Microsoft and the Scottish Library Information Council have agreed to serve on the Group and I have a representative from a Scottish school too. I'm hoping to add representatives from the media and Internet Service Providers among others. I'll post a list of members once the full group has been assembled.