Online social networking is as much a part of youngster everyday lives as watching TV or fish and chip suppers. But as we all know there are risks in these open forums such as Facebook & Bebo. How do you know who your children are talking to online? Are they who they say they are? Are the conversations they are having suitable for their age? Are you sure they are not being bullied online?
It is a sad state of affairs that we have to consider all of the above, when these sites can enrich all of our online experiences, if they are used sensibly and responsibly.
To help with this Thomas Alleyne’s High School in Uttoxeter has launched its own social networking site as part of its Virtual Learning Environment provided by Frog. This site lets pupils, search for friends, post status messages and write on each other’s walls all within a secure site that is constantly monitored.
This website is only available to pupils, meaning that many of the risks of the commercial sites are removed, pupils can only logon as themselves and can only search for and become friends with other pupils in the school. If there is any misuse such as swearing or bullying it is instantly picked up by the school's monitoring systems and the pupils are dealt with appropriately within the discipline code of the school. This even applies to the things that happen at home as they are using a school system.
The school firmly believes that these technologies should be embraced in the classroom and utilised to enhance the learning of the pupils as it is a technology of now and one that the pupils use everyday. Forums are already used to great effect within subject areas and to promote discussion on subjects as wide ranging as the position of the BNP in British politics to the X-Factor!
See the article on the local news pages here. 
