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Are your children safe online?

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Education blog: Rob Heath discusses the safety of children on the Internet and what parents can do to minimise the risks.

Do you know where your child is right now? Are they safe?

In the world of the mobile phone and electronic communication, parents can know where their children are all the time and there are even tracking systems available using the GPS facility on mobile phones writes Rob Heath of the University of Wolverhampton.

Gone are the days of children going off all day with a pack of sandwiches, only to reappear when it's time for tea.

But are they really safe? Where are they now - are they in their bedroom? Well, they must be safe then... or maybe not!

More and more children now have Internet access in their bedrooms to supplement the TV, games console and music system.

So many devices can now connect to the outside world via the Internet, so children have a vast range of places in which they can interact with other people and, equally, other people can interact with them.

We are in the area of eSafety and the increasing need for both parents and children to be aware of the possible dangers that lurk in the new 'cyberworld' that children, and adults, inhabit.

We would hope that all adults would look after children, but the stories in the news make it clear this is not the case.

As part of their training to become teachers, our students are made aware of eSafety and do practical tasks online to investigate this further.

eSafety involves making teachers, parents and children aware of the places they may be at risk - very much like the way we make children aware of the dangers of crossing the road. We give them the skills and the information they need to cross the road safely, knowing that we won't always be with them.

So it is with eSafety, we can't be with children all the time that they are on the computer or using their Playstation or mobile phone, but we can give them the skills to stay safe.

The first thing is to look at the location of the computer a child has access to. It is increasingly common to find that children have a computer in their bedroom, fully connected to the Internet.

So is it protected by a content filter? Most computers have this programme as part of the operating system, but it has to be changed to allow filtering of material that children should not be looking at - or additional software can be purchased to do this.

Have you looked at the history of what has been looked at or has the history been cleared? This will allow a parent to see what children have been looking at.

Secondly, what sort of an online profile does your child have? Do they use social spaces like Twitter or Facebook?

You have to be 16 to have a Facebook account but in my experience many primary age children have an account. You just put a birthdate that makes you 16 when you apply for an account, in the same was as we click 'I agree' or 'yes I am over 16' when buying a knife online – the computer doesn't know!

Children are very trusting and unless their account is changed it is open to everyone and they can see names, birthdays, pet names, friends and so on and this allows anyone to build up a really good profile of your child.

Do they have a phone and can they send text and picture messages? Cyber bullying is on the increase and once a phone number is known a child can receive hundreds of messages and can become threatened and frightened.

We all have a responsibility to keep our children safe, as parents, as teachers and of course the child themselves.

The School of Education now has two fully trained EPICT (European Pedogogical ICT Licence) trainers who can provide training in eSafety to schools and groups of parents and this training is also given to all of our students. The aim is to inform and keep our children safe, we hope this is your aim too.

If you want to know more a good place to start is: http://www.childnet-int.org/

Rob Heath is a Senior Lecturer in the Primary Initial Teacher Education Department at the University of Wolverhampton.