e-Responsibility

On the 7th April I attended an e-Responsibility event at Gateshead College.  This was a follow up event from the e-Responsibility Conference that was held there last November.  The conference had been a really interesting and positive event with good speakers including Dr Tanya Byron, author of the Byron Review. 
The e-Responsibility event this month was the next step after the conference and was the inaugural meeting to set up a forum that will meet regularly.  There were representatives from colleges, both staff and students, from schools, from Northumbria Police, from NGfL and other institutions and interested parties.
There were a variety of presentations which were very interesting especially the ones showing how students studying Performing Arts had created perfomances for children in schools to make them aware of e-Safety.  It was a different approach and the impact was clear i.e. that the primary and secondary school children were engaging with the older students and the performance.  The presentations were interspersed with activities for delegates at the tables and were useful in forming opinions and collecting views about where the forum should go from here.  The collaboration was useful and it was interesting to hear the views of others.
From my point of view I think it is important that we consider e-Responsibility as a wider issue not just as e-safety and also to make it positive and upbeat.  The advantages of using the Internet outweigh the disadvantages - however it is essential that it is used carefully in the same way that you would use any powerful tool. 
I also think it is essential that a different approach is used for FE students than is used for primary and secondary school students - sometimes they have heard it all before in exactly the same way so disengage.