Updates
- Free resource (KS4/5) – pornography and regulation.
- Will AI replace traditional social media?
- Report – embedding AI in education.
- Report – understanding the impact of news on children’s wellbeing.
- For parents – Instagram content PG13
Free Resource (KS4/5) – Pornography and Regulation
The PSHE Association in partnership with BBFC have put together two free lesson packs for KS4 and 5 students which “contextualises the BBFC’s role in regulating pornography, outlines the potential harms and equips students with the tools to understand how consent works online”.
The resource consists of 2 lesson plans and Powerpoint presentations, 2 resource packs, 2 explainer videos and teacher guidance notes.
You can find the resource HERE.
Will AI Replace Traditional Social Media?
If you read my update from last week you may remember mention of the new Sora app, essentially a TikTok challenger from Open AI (ChatGPT) where the whole social feed is highly realistic user-generated AI video. It’s only available in the US at the moment, but rollout elsewhere will be very soon.
We all know that social media usage by children and young people is at an all-time high, no surprise there, but there’s also no doubt that many of the younger generations are just tiring of the same old thing wrapped up in a different design, to which many are just using social media for the messaging features.
Enter Generative AI – are we going to be seeing a shift? I have little doubt the answer to that is yes. We’re already seeing it with the more popular social platforms introducing GenAI features, now we have Sora on the horizon. What comes next?
Coincidentally my good friend Darren Laur over in Canada wrote an article recently on this very thing. Darren argues that by the time today’s 10 year olds become teenagers many will face limited or no access to traditional social media platforms due to the plethora of incoming legislation around the world and age-gating. Therefore, traditional social media will lose its appeal and emerging AI will become the new personalised social environments, including personalised chatbots which we’re already seeing.
Darren makes a very compelling argument and one I completely agree with. I’m not going to steal his thunder, you can read the full article HERE.
Report – Embedding AI in Education
The Woodland Academy Trust have released a report into a strategic review of practice at Woodland Academy Trust along with Mark Anderson, the ICT Evangelist. The aim of a year-long consultancy was to: explore how generative AI could responsibly support teachers, reduce workload and improve learning across all schools n the Trust, all based on evidence.
That last one, evidence, is crucial. There is so much hype about AI in education (and elsewhere) but so far there is little evidence to back it up. This is, I suspect, one of the many reasons that a lot of schools are holding back.
I can highly recommend having a read of this report, to give you an insight:
- Average weekly planning tine was reduced from 10 hours to 4.75 hours (52.5% reduction).
- This translated into a lighter workload and better well-being.
- Which further allowed more focus on student engagement and assessment, with 82% teachers reporting an increase in pupil engagement.
Report – Understanding the Impact of News on Children’s Wellbeing
There seem to be a lot of reports coming out at the moment. This new report from Internet Matters called Informed or Overwhelmed looks at how social media is reshaping how children and young people consume news, the opportunities and challenges.
This is an important one to understand. Annual reports from Ofcom continually show us that children and young people don’t get their news the traditional way, it comes from a range of other sources with social media being a big one.
This report looks at how distressing news stories, mis and disinformation (plus AI-generated content) can impact a person’s wellbeing with the algorithmic design having a big impact in pushing out negative and distressing news, creating anxiety, overwhelming feelings. Over a quarter of children have believed a fake AI-generated story, another 41% think they have. This leaves children feeling embarrassed, confused and less trusting.
At 58 pages it’s a big report but there is lots of useful information in the Executive Summary if you are time-limited. You can read the full report HERE.
For Parents – Instagram AI Content PG13
Instagram have come out with their latest ‘we prioritise teen safety’ feature. This time they have introduced a new way for parents to manage their teens’ access to one-on-one chats with AI characters. Teen accounts are now to be guided by PG13 movie ratings, which means that users should only see content that’s similar to what they would see in a PG13 movie by default.
AI characters (chatbots) are a significant concern. They were introduced into many apps around 3 years ago and there continues to be reports of multiple failures of so-called safety guardrails with children being exposed to chats, advice and guidance which is entirely age-inappropriate.
The new features:
- Allow parents to turn off their child’s access to one-on-one chats with AI characters entirely.
- Allow parents to block specific AI characters.
- Parents will get insights into the topics their children are chatting about with AI characters.
Weekly Update to your Inbox
Online Safety Pro
Staff, parent and governor online safety training.
- Annual staff, parent and governor training (pre-recorded videos).
- Half-termly staff and parents updates (video for staff, PDF newsletter for parents.
- 12 month subscription – 1 single low cost per school (not per person).
- All written and produced by Alan Mackenzie, an online safety specialist for over 17 years.
- Discounts for multi-school or MAT purchases.