Lessons in netiquette

Updated on: Saturday, May 14, 2011

Schools are realising that teaching the rules of math, science and languages may not be enough for today’s students growing up in the cyber world. The schools are now including internet etiquette or ‘netiquette’ in their curriculum. So much so that it’s now becoming common place to see students in Classes I and II reciting phrases like: “While chatting, greet happily”, and “Be careful on the keyboard”.

“To keep pace with the world today, we have to enable children to use the internet and use it effectively. Knowing the pitfalls that children could be tempted into, we are making efforts to educate them on certain protocol so they don’t violate the rules,” said T Thavasimoni, vice principal of Vidyapeetam Senior Secondary School in Chennai. The school teaches netiquette to its students through their information communication technology (ICT) curriculum Chrysalis.

“Many schools deny their children access to the internet because they want to feel safe. So we felt the need to include aspects in our ICT Chrysalis curriculum that would teach students the right behaviour online. We also help schools to use firewalls that disable the danger of inadvertently getting into undesirable sites. We are introducing a 21st century learning environment in schools,” said Chitra Ravi, founder and CEO of EzVidya, an educational services provider.

Chrysalis teaches older students to use technology without hurting others. “For instance, when we teach them modules on Photoshop we instruct them about getting prior permission from an individual before exercising their morphing skills on the person’s picture and teach them about constructive ways to use their skills,” Chitra Ravi said.

In the primary classes, the children are taught responsible computing, including how to protect their own folders and not to open other files. This is expected to help students understand the ethical issues behind hacking into another person’s account when they grow older. Chrysalis is used in over 250 schools across the country.

N Pavittra, curriculum designer, Auuro Educational Services, said they decided to work on creating awareness among teachers and getting them to put in a little extra effort to teach cyber ethics to students.

“We asked them to teach children in older classes to understand copyrights, and draw the line between plagiarism and using internet resources. There are distinct plagiarism monitors in the west, but right now this space is still unregulated here,” Pavittra said.

Auuro Educational Services provides training workshops for teachers across the country. Their methods and content are used by Monarch International School in Coimbatore, Geetanjali International School in Bangalore and Westwood in Vizag among others. Chennai’s Sishya brings external experts and resource persons to educate children on proper internet usage. Nikhil Mathur, a Class VII student, said, “We were taught to be careful about whom we add to our ‘friends’ list, publishing photos and making comments about others. He informed us about how our digital footprint lasts for ages online.”

Guidelines for students

- Understand what is meant by copyright
- Don’t plagiarise from the internet
- Be careful who you add to your ‘friends’ list and what you post on social networking websites
- Create your own folders on the computer
- Do not open others’ folders

Lessons in netiquette

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