Online safety: Caroline Allams, founder of Natterhub

EPISODE NOTES In this episode, Claire talks with Caroline Allams: founder of Natterhub, a gated, child-orientated social-media platform where children can interact safely while learning about online safety. Caroline talks about how she always knew that she wanted to be a teacher recalling how, as a child, she enjoyed ‘bossing people around in the garden with a whistle’. Having always enjoyed going to school and feeling as though there was something ‘magical’ about teachers, she felt that going into education herself was a natural step. Caroline also talks about how her brother’s chronic ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) made her mother feel like a failing parent. As a teacher, this drove Caroline to vow to herself that no parent or child in her class would feel that way about themselves. Along with this, Caroline’s experiences in international schools – both as a child and, later, as a teacher – helped give her broader and more diverse perspectives on the world. Caroline discusses how, during the initial coronavirus lockdown, ‘Natterhub’ was created to enable children to communicate and interact in a way that would seem familiar to those children who were already aware of social media, but in a safer and more secure environment. While still incorporating this primary functionality, Natterhub has since expanded offering interactive and educational content to enable children to learn more about the benefits and risks associated with social media and the wider online world.   KEY TAKEAWAYS The importance of children learning about online safety.Technology, the internet and its accessibility has grown exponentially over the last few decades and children are rarely fully equipped and ready for the wider world they can access. It is, therefore, vital that children learn about the benefits and the risks of this incredible resource in an age-appropriate way. Children can pick up so much very quickly but can appear more aware and competent than they might actually be.Without putting some education in place beforehand, it is like hoping that a child will know how to cross a road safely without being taught about the dangers. Look to build digital resilience and digital empathy.Teaching children about these two areas is key to keeping children safe online. Digital empathy is being aware of how your actions will or could impact others. Digital resilience is knowing what challenges might need to be faced online and having an awareness of how to handle these. Coupled together, through knowing how to interact appropriately with others, and being able to confidently deal with inevitable bumps in the road that will occur, children can have a better and more healthy experience online. Understanding what digital literacy is.It is not uncommon to underestimate just how much is covered by the term ‘digital literacy’. Beyond the basic awareness of not disclosing passwords or personal information, digital literacy can encompass many other areas such as the ability to analyse articles for bias, misleading content, images, and also an understanding of how or when to behave a certain way as something like the wrong emoji at the wrong time in a group-chat could cause wildly unexpected consequences.   BEST MOMENTS “I always loved having the opportunity to create moments for my children, for them to really love coming to school. I quickly realised that learning through ‘doing’ rather than learning through hearing about it was definitely the direction that it was going to take with my teaching style.” “Building that digital resilience and promoting digital empathy are two key magic ingredients for keeping children safe online.” “I think what's great about growing up now and about social media is this ability for children to find other people. Whether it's through Minecraft, whether it's through another digital channel, that they can find other people like them so that the world becomes a little bit smaller and it's easier for them to connect.” “We have this metaphor, this analogy of you wouldn't put your children in a pool without teaching them how to swim. Water's a great analogy really because, if you go on holiday, you can't wait to get in the pool, can't wait to get the sea. But, if you can't swim, it's potentially fatal. The internet's a bit the same. You can thrive online. You can have a great time. This is a great time to be growing up. You've got all of this content, this information at your fingertips, but you've got to have the skills to know how to navigate it. Otherwise you run the risk of going down a very dark path and drowning.” “What we want children to recognise, in teaching them to be safe and savvy, you want them to use it creatively. You want them to use digital media purposefully. So we're trying to get away from the sort of mindless scrolling of just time-wasting which we can all be guilty of.” “We've got to nurture creativity. We've got to allow people to learn in the way that they need to learn and bring what they bring because we all benefit from that. Children benefit from that in the classroom environment.” “Children are so resilient. With all the things that they're faced with, we don't know what's gone on before they get to school. And then, they get into school and we suddenly expect them to think about fronted adverbials or get inside a poem that we've spent four hours planning the night before. It's a lot. It's a big ask. So when they when they do it, and they do it independently, I just think let's tell them how great that is.” “For children, as soon as they see the first answer to their question [on the internet] they think that it’s true. It's just teaching the skills to think no, it might not be true. It might be completely fake, and you just jumped on it.” “There's a lot of guilt around screens. Children feel guilty sometimes because they're permanently told you shouldn't be on a screen. Get off the screen. It's bad for you. Actually, they might have been doing something really amazing or had a great sense of achievement. Or it it's really contributing to their wellbeing being on a screen. And then we take that away from them by presuming that all screen time is bad. And it's not the case. It's just about putting the right education around it.”   VALUABLE RESOURCES Natterhub: https://natterhub.com Natterhub on Twitter: https://twitter.com/natterhub Natterhub on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/natterhub Caroline Allams on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/caroline-allams-46351547/ Pedagogs: https://thepedagogs.com Classroom Secrets Kids: https://kids.classroomsecrets.co.uk The Teachers’ Podcast: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheTeachersPodcast/ Classroom Secrets Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClassroomSecretsLimited/ Classroom Secrets website: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/ LIFE/work balance campaign: https://classroomsecrets.co.uk/lifeworkbalance-and-wellbeing-in-education-campaign-2019/   ABOUT THE HOST 'My mother is a teacher. I will never be a teacher.' - Claire Riley Claire arrived at the end of her performing arts degree with no firm plans to move into the entertainment industry. A fully funded secondary teaching course seemed like the perfect way to stall for a year on deciding what to do with her life. Turns out, teaching was her thing.  Three years in a challenging secondary school - check. Two years in primary schools with over 90% EAL children - check. Eight years doing day-to-day supply across 4-18 - check. If there's one thing she learnt, it was how to identity the best ideas from every school in terms of resources and use that knowledge to create something that would work for teachers far and wide. In 2013, Classroom Secrets was born. Claire had seen other resource sites and wanted to add something to the market that she felt was missing. More choice + More quality = Balance. Claire is a self-proclaimed personal development junkie and is always looking for ways to learn and improve. It's usually centred around business, her new-found passion. In 2019, Claire launched The Teachers' Podcast that hit that charts on launch and is listed in the top 200 educational podcasts most weeks. The Teachers’ Podcast is a series of interviews where Claire meets with a wide range of guests involved in the field of education. These podcasts provide exciting discussions and different perspectives and thoughts on a variety of themes which are both engaging and informative for anyone involved in education.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.