Digital Technologies – Responsible Use

Resources

Safe Socials resources

• Safe Socials provides information and resources for secondary school students, and parents and carers of primary and secondary school students to have a healthy relationship with social media and be safe online.
• Student fact sheet (secondary): how secondary students can have a healthy relationship with social media, recognise online exploitation and what to do if something goes wrong online.
• Parent fact sheet (secondary): helps parents and carers support their child to be safe online, recognise signs they need help and know what to do if they have an unsafe online experience.
• Parent fact sheet (primary): helps parents and carers prepare their child to be safe on social media even if they don’t use it yet, by building good online habits.

The department’s Bully Stoppers resources

• The department’s Bully Stoppers online toolkit includes advice sheets for adults (including school staff) on cyberbulling and cybersafety. Bully Stoppers also includes a dedicated schools section to support whole-school approaches to bullying (including cyberbullying) prevention, including engaging with your community, responding to concerns appropriately to create safe, respectful and inclusive school environments.
• Schools can also consult the Bully Stoppers step-by-step guide for schools (PDF) to respond to an online incident affecting students.

eSmart Program

• eSmart Schools is an initiative of the Alannah and Madeline Foundation, where schools are provided with support and resources (through the self-paced Positive Digital Cultures and Positive Digital Practices Units) to develop a culture that promotes safe, smart and responsible use of technology and reduce cyberbullying. eSmart Schools is aligned to the curriculum and free for all Victorian schools.

eSafety Commissioner resources

• The eSafety Commissioner’s educators page provides access to advice and support, information, current research, teaching guides, lesson plans and resources to help schools improve cybersafety and reduce cyberbullying.
• The eSafety Toolkit for Schools is designed to support schools to create safer online environments. The resources are backed by evidence and support a nationally consistent approach to preventing and responding to online safety issues.
• The eSafety Commissioner’s professional learning program for teachers includes webinars, staff meeting series and online modules on topics including online harmful behaviours, generative AI, social media self-defence, and responding and reporting.
• The eSafety Guide provides information about different platforms including how to protect your personal information and report harmful content on common social media, games, apps and sites.
• The spotlight on cyberbullying includes links to a range of resources across the eSafety website and includes downloadable material created to help your school community prevent and respond to cyberbullying.
• The Trusted eSafety Provider program consists of quality online safety education providers who have had their online safety content endorsed by eSafety. Schools wishing to engage an online safety education expert to present to their school community can choose a registered provider through this program.

Responding to online incidents

• Read and follow the department policy – Managing and Reporting School Incidents (Including Emergencies).
• Information on how to respond to teacher misconduct relating to digital technology use can be found in the Complaints, Misconduct and Unsatisfactory Performance – Teaching Service policy.
• The National Copyright Unit supports the department and schools with guidance on responding to a copyright infringement notice.
• The department’s Bully Stoppers step-by-step guide for schools (PDF) provides advice on how to respond to an online incident affecting students.
• The eSafety Commissioner’s Respond resources help schools to effectively assess and respond to online incidents.

Online safety resources for parents/carers

• Social media and your school (PDF) – this resource outlines how to be a positive role model by demonstrating respectful and responsible behaviours when communicating with and about your child’s school online.

Parental consent and permission

• ‘Notifications for online services’ in the Collection notices chapter of the guidance for the Privacy and Information Sharing policy.
• Information and templates on seeking copyright permission to use student work at Smartcopying.

Acceptable Use Agreement templates

For information about developing and implementing Acceptable Use Agreements (AUA) for student use (including template AUAs), refer to the Digital Learning policy.

Relevant links

The department’s Mental Health Fund and Menu – includes eSmart and eSafety Commissioner’s website, supporting schools to direct mental health funding to engage with and embed these supports.