MANAGING ICT

Jonathan Welfare

discusses the success of

CyberMentors, a ground- breaking peer mentoring scheme aimed at keeping children safe online

B

ULLYING HAS long been a perennial problem for schools and pupils alike – children suffer at the hands of bullies for a wide variety of reasons: for being too smart, too pretty, or simply for not fitting into some predefined mould of what is deemed to be acceptable.

Bullying can significantly affect how students feel

about their schools and how they perform in the classroom. It can also make their lives miserable, with 20 children committing suicide every year as the only form of escape that they can see. It used to be that students could escape bullying

when they went home or during summer holidays. However, due to the pervasive reach of the internet and increasing use of “smart” mobile technology, bullying is now an anytime, anywhere problem. This digital bullying, better known as cyber-bullying, is estimated to affect around a quarter of secondary age pupils, according to Action for Children. For today’s children, the internet offers no escape

from being taunted by bullies. To these children, instead of being a tool used for personal growth and enhancing relationships with peers, the web is an environment filled with threatening people; and for many youngsters, bullying is an everyday reality. In fact, BeatBullying found that nearly one in

three 11 to 16-year-olds has been targeted, threatened or humiliated by an individual or group through the internet or mobiles. For one in 13 children, this cyber- bullying is a consistent and persistent threat, happening over a period of months or even years. However, educators cannot discourage children

from accessing the internet just to keep cyber-bullying at bay. And the truth is that despite all the good work done by schools, governments and internet charities to keep children safe from the dangers, it is impossible to make the internet completely safe. As a result, the role adults play is increasingly vital

in helping children recognise and deal with the dangers they encounter while surfing the web. It is crucial to understand that the internet offers a

peer-to-peer environment and young people should be educated about what they should and should not do. If they would not do something face-to-face, then they should not do it online. Encouraging and empowering of children to support each other through instances of bullying both on and offline should be redoubled. In recognising the need for increased support to

overcome cyber-bullying and the need to make the internet a safer place for all, the Nominet Trust has helped fund BeatBullying’s CyberMentor programme, whereby a social networking model is used for peer mentoring. It is the world’s first peer mentoring website made

for young people, by young people. This programme is now available in hundreds of schools nationwide and thousands of CyberMentors are being trained to act as mentors and guides to other young people they meet online when surfing, chatting or just having fun. Research has shown that in many cases, young

people are not comfortable talking about bullying with their teachers or parents, as they fear having their internet access restricted or cut off. The CyberMentors programme is an ideal way for

students to get the help they need from trusted and trained peers who can share experiences and fully sympathise with students To find suitable CyberMentors, BeatBullying

representatives go into schools to find pupils from a range of backgrounds and with different skills who would benefit from mentor training. These young people are then trained over a number of days in a range of skills to prepare them to offer support to students being bullied on and offline and also to flag any dangerous situations to a teacher or another adult. All interactions between mentors and peers remain

confidential. To help with situations where students could be in danger (when a student is self-harming, for example), there is an assigned staff safety officer in each school to support CyberMentors. Since its launch in March 2009, the CyberMentors

website has had in excess of 500,000 visits from youngsters seeking help with bullying. This incredible number of visits in such a short time shows that children are not willing to accept bullying as a fact of life on the internet and are actively seeking resources that help increase their confidence and safety online. In addition to online mentoring programmes, students should also look to their teachers for help in

SecEd • May 13 2010

Better safe than sorry

combating bullying. To make themselves approachable, teachers must ensure that any conversations will remain confidential and that they will not restrict a student’s access to the internet. In many ways, educators are in a privileged position to

shape the way pupils surf the internet. For example, they can help youngsters deal with the dangers encountered online by integrating the internet in lessons. This is an ideal way of encouraging constructive use of the internet and starting a dialogue on any negative experiences students have faced while online and how they have overcome them. By openly talking about the risks, educators unaware

of bullying incidences in their classrooms can open a dialogue with students and become a useful resource for pupils who feel they cannot cope with the online bullying experience. Even if this dialogue becomes difficult as online risks

and incidents of threatening behaviour are uncovered, it is important for educators to keep enabling students to access the internet with no restrictions. Restricted internet access keeps pupils safe in the short term, but means they are more vulnerable at home, where the school’s stringent safeguards are no longer in place to protect them. Teachers need to empower students to recognise and

flag bullying so they are able to deal with any problems when they arise. A child whose use of the internet is closely monitored at school will not necessarily develop the level of understanding required to use new technologies responsibly in other contexts. While it is impossible to remove all dangers from

the internet, it is possible to teach children how to keep themselves safe online. The internet is a tool that can help children fight bullying, through safe and confidential peer support groups. This aims to build a child’s confidence on and offline to help them deal with threatening behaviour in a safe, efficient and constructive way. Together with support from educators and parents,

these programmes are instrumental in helping transform the internet as a power for good, not a risk-filled, threatening landscape. It is only with appropriate support and understanding

that we can keep youngsters from thinking that the only way out of being bullied is through self-harm. It is every school’s responsibility to recognise how serious bullying is and make a commitment to tackle it.

SecEd

• Jonathan Welfare is chairman of the Nominet Trust, which is funded by Nominet, an internet registry, and which provides grants for “innovative projects which improve and encourage the safe use of the internet for educational, inclusion and other charitable purposes”.

Further information

• www.nominettrust.org.uk • www.cybermentors.org.uk

Tomorrow’s world

In the second of a series of six articles on technologies in education, Kieron Kirkland from education research charity Futurelab explores ambient and pervasive technologies

could it be like to live, and learn, in this world of pervasive (in everything) and ambient (part of the constant background) computing. DK Arvind, a researcher in ambient computing

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at Edinburgh University, attempts to answer this question: “People are thinking in terms of intelligent ambient spaces, where you have sensing and computation technology embedded in the physical infrastructure so that it disappears into the environment – much in the way that cable and electricity networks do in built spaces.” If there is such widespread dissemination of

ubiquitous access to processing power and information sources, it is bound to change the ways in which we learn and work. Martin Illsley, director of research for Accenture

Technology Labs in France, suggests that ubiquitous computing “may soon mean that we will let children start sending text messages in the classroom as it’ll be part of the school day”. Mr Arvind is less conservative about the possible

impact, suggesting that the responsive and adaptive nature of these new technologies will be able to better meet learners’ requirements and needs and so support personalised learning. He explained: “One could use computers worn

by people to teach skills involving motor control, tracking movements and comparing them with how it ought to be done – and so you could teach dance, martial arts, sports etc.” Caroline Gabriel, research director with consultancy Rethink IT, suggests ambient computing

HE WORLD of tomorrow – which may be closer than you think – may feature massively distributed processing power, with intelligence built into not just networks but buildings, everyday devices and maybe even our clothes. What

could go some way towards eliminating geographical boundaries to learning: “If everyone can access sufficiently cheap and portable devices, and wireless networks are ubiquitous, then there are opportunities to communicate and distance-learn constantly, and from any location – to tap into teachers and other resources that would otherwise be confined to a single school or district.” Award-winning British science fiction author

Stephen Baxter feels that the time is right for education to make the most of ambient and pervasive technology. He said: “The convergence of communications and computing technology with the coming oil crisis is surely going to change the whole basis of education, meaning that education will need to be brought to the students. There will still be local schools, for socialising, and local teachers will be non-specialist pastoral ‘guides’. But most education will surely come through the technology, with real specialist teachers perhaps remotely based, or with virtual guides, to help you find your way through an effectively infinite world of fact and interpretation.” But there are those who feel that the pervasive

and ambient vision may be flawed. Technology editor of the Guardian, Charles Arthur, argues that “a lot of these visions ignore the practicalities, like the complexity of making wireless network settings and content permissions. Look at how restrictive licensing of digital content can be”. The reality of course is that the future may be very

different from all these current visions. The challenge for educationalists is not to worry about the specifics of the technology, but to support learners to take advantage of these vastly enriched learning spaces.

• Kieron Kirkland is a learning researcher at Futurelab, a charity dedicated to transforming teaching and learning by using innovative practice and technology. Visit www.futurelab.org.uk

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