Bottom-up development of e-safety policy for Estonian schools

  • Authors:
  • Birgy Lorenz;Kaido Kikkas;Mart Laanpere

  • Affiliations:
  • Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia;Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia;Tallinn University, Tallinn, Estonia

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

E-learning is becoming more social and open, resulting with open learning resources, open courses, open personal learning environments. This paper focuses on policy recommendations for preventing e-safety incidents at school. The problem is that currently used rules and procedures do not define how to actually manage risks, resolve or prevent their formation. In most cases, the proposed strategy is banning and access restrictions, but we claim that it does not solve the real problem. Nowadays, each student can take mobile Internet to school premises and use it as she/he pleases. This paper discusses the results of a Delphi study, which involved 25 Estonian informatics teachers and IT staff from the Estonian Informatics Teachers' Facebook Community and Tallinn Informatics mailing list. In addition, 75 upper-secondary school students, 13 parents, 6 specialists from different ICT and education-related fields and 6 school principals contributed to the recommendations. The study resulted with recommendations regarding Internet safety policies at schools but also on the social networks. On the other hand, some of the proposed recommendations are in conflict with constitutional rights and personal freedom of students and teachers.