According to research, children use the Internet independently already from 7 years old and spend on the Internet at least several hours a day . This poses a huge challenge for the school - not only to keep up with them, but also to teach them how to exploit all the possibilities offered by the Internet in a safe way. What are the most effective ways of using online tools during lessons and, finally, how to communicate with students and their parents? CyberStrong School addresses teachers' most urgent needs. The goal of this pilot program implemented by the Citi Handlowy Foundation in cooperation with the Warsaw Institute of Banking and Early Stage English Language School is to support teachers in their everyday duties.
The second stage of the project includes practical classes. Teachers will learn how to prepare students to use the Internet, how to set up secure logins and passwords and how to talk about establishing rules for being online and offline at home. They will also explore the issue of effective communication both with students and parents, learn about the differences between offline and online communication, as well as find out how to identify threats that can concern their students. Under one module, the lecturer will present to the participants also such issues as grooming, sexting and cyberbullying. During the workshops teachers will obtain knowledge and tools to best respond to such threats and to prevent them.
We have designed three modules under the CyberStrong School project: for early school education teachers, tutors and pedagogues, and English teachers. Each of these groups will receive a customized training, designed according to the analysis of their needs conducted with our partners. Teachers of foreign languages, for example, are said to have best managed to catch children's attention online. However, they still need to learn more about cybersecurity. Early school education teachers, on the other hand, are facing a huge challenge today - to keep children focused, take care of their mental and physical well-being and, finally, to introduce children to the online world, says Dorota Szostek-Rustecka, President of the Citi Handlowy Foundation. We hope our classes will help teachers and children navigate the new reality and survive this time.
The CyberStrong School project was launched on October 8. The first classes in the form of online lectures were conducted by Wojciech Ronatowicz (pedagogue, teacher, expert, Safer Internet Forum) and Aleksandra Piotrowska (psychologist, research fellow of Educational Psychology Center at the University of Warsaw). In the second and third stage of the project its participants (more than 500 teachers), divided into 13 groups, are taking part in practical workshops with lecturers. The project will end with a lecture in January 2021, and then we will prepare courses for the participants and evaluate the project.
