8 Other issues – viruses and malware
- Spams & scams, http://www.breakthechain.org/ss.html [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]
- Phishing, http://www.commoncraft.com/phishing
- GetNetWise, http://www.getnetwise.org/, advice about different software protection
- Sorted, http://www.childnet.com/sorted/, advice written by a young person for other young people on information security issues
Access to the internet in most schools is managed, filtered and safe. There will be anti-virus and firewall protection in place to ensure that users are protected. However, young people can find that their home computer becomes infected with viruses and malware and it’s really important to include the importance of securing their computer as part of e-safety.
What resources do you have in schools to stop anyone introducing viruses into the system? What about adware or malware? Where does adware or malware come from?
Do you have very tightly controlled web filtering so that you cannot access many of the sites that would give you the opportunity to download music, for instance?
Is your computer use monitored? If you visited a shopping site and bought shoes whilst you are in school would anyone know?
Teachers have a duty to teach children how to keep themselves safe – not only personally, but legally and financially too. It’s therefore increasingly important to teach young people about financial literacy, how they can be a victim of fraud and the dangers of copying material which is copyrighted.
See http://www.ictineducation.org/ home-page/ 2010/ 4/ 13/ 11-essential-elements-of-a-digital-financial-literacy-course.html for a good summary of online financial issues with 11 helpful suggestions.
Reflection
Filtering means various sites are blocked – this may be on the basis of words, domains, image colouring and more. Monitoring, however, is just that. Sites are monitored and hopefully any troublesome behaviour is spotted and visits to those sites stopped before it became a problem.
Which would you prefer?
Which would be best for your children? Why?
Write your thoughts in the forum and see how others feel. Respond to other teachers’ thoughts.
Are any of the things that you try to download illegal, such as music or images?
What dangers do illegal music or video downloads pose?
Do you understand the copyright rules?
Are memory sticks, external hard drives and similar allowed in school?
Investigate Dropbox as an alternative, http://www.dropbox.com. Dropbox is a free (up to 2 GB capacity) resource that allows users to have a folder where they can save their own files on a server accessible from anywhere at any time. A person who uses it can open their folder on any computer to access their files. Users can also share those files by giving access to a web link.
7 Social networking