EU Report Helps Educators Tackle IT – Fake It Gave Counselling

Understanding privacy and that use of technology implies risks – not to forget that once information is published on the internet it will never vanish. Such are some of the challenges for educators in 8 different EU countries.

This is the focus of a new ENISA report. The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) is a centre of network and information security expertise for the EU, and the report explores ways in which educators can get full use out of information technologies while promoting and providing education on the importance of network information security.

In July 2012 the survey ‘Network Information Security in Education: Key findings from practice’ was conducted. One of the results are the  ‘Top 10 challenges in ICT for students’, which is summarized below:
– understanding what privacy means;
– understanding that use of technology implies risks and understanding that risks are not only personal, but can have an impact on other people as well (possibly very close to us);
– understanding that once information is published it is not likely to vanish from the Internet: a mistake today can impact the distant future;
– receiving adequate information and training from school, because new generations know and approach new technologies differently, and in some cases they have a better knowledge than their teachers;
– understanding technology, and not only using it;
– remapping real human relationships and behaviours on the internet: Netiquette;
– multidisciplinary expertise (legal, technical, organisational);
– filling the gaps between bytes, programming languages, and the role of ICT in modern society.

The authors behind Fake It is also contributing to the report with an essay about Danish schools and municipalities who are – uncritically – using networks such as Facebook where citizens and pupils are sharing often sensitive personal data without any warnings or debate. Read the whole Fake It contribution in the blog section.