Professional Practice
Standard 4: Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

A segment of a lesson plan from a Personal Development and Health (PDH) unit, ‘Safety Smart’, which was implemented in a Kindergarten classroom, with the explicit teaching of safe, responsible, and ethical use of ICT in and out of school.

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Since the provision of a safe and supportive environment is not only confined to physical safety within the classroom, but encompasses empowering students with skills to identify and handle safety issues effectively, as recommended by Trump and Kenneth (2011), I, therefore, incorporated explicit teaching of safe, responsible, and ethical use of ICT inside and outside of school. I used a range of resources for students to engage with and understand the scenarios they may encounter with frequent use of ICT, including a game with a focus on not disclosing identification information to strangers like address, full name, or passwords. I engaged them with a video by the e-Safety Commissioner, analysing scenarios where sharing personal information on an ICT platform would not be safe without consulting an already established safe network of adults. Hence, clear well-defined rules shared through computer safety posters displayed later within the classroom for future reference ensured that students were well prepared to use ICT safely for any subject and in any setting.