SHARING WITH PARENTS ON Helping Your Children Be Discerning About Online Information Today, we will be sharing with you how we can better help our children be discerning of online information.

What does it mean to be discerning about online information? It refers to the ability to tell online falsehoods apart from information that is true and reliable. - To be discerning is to be able to judge/tell true information from false ones, and avoid spreading or creating falsehoods

Forms of Online Falsehoods Disinformation: Deliberate spread of false information, created to deceive by disinformation agents Misinformation: Unintentional spread of false information There are mainly two forms of online falsehoods that students or even adults may encountered.: Disinformation, which refers to false information that is deliberately created and spread Misinformation, which involves the unintentional spread of false information

Outline of Presentation Case Study Discussion Impact of Online Falsehoods MOE’s Cyber Wellness Education Parents as Partners We will be covering the following in this session to better understand how children may encounter or be affected by online falsehoods. More importantly, how can we as educators and parents help them understand the seriousness of creating or spreading online falsehoods, and avoid being agents of disinformation and misinformation?

CASE STUDY Discussion We will begin with sharing with you an example of how undiscerning younger students may be involved in the creation and spread of false information online.

Case Study

Case Study

Case Study

Case Study

Case Study

Case Study

Case Study

Case Study

Case Study

What happened? What were the causes? Ali and Shawn shared a photo of Shawn’s fake cockroach in his friend’s Fish & Chips without considering the consequences Other students shared the post with their friends without verifying the truth of the story Evie was aware of Ali and Shawn’s actions but did not speak up about it

What might be the consequences for the various parties What might be the consequences for the various parties? How would you feel if you were them? Reputational loss Disruption to operations Time lost in carrying out investigations In guiding your children, it will be useful to get them to think about how the creation and sharing of false information can affect different parties. In this case, the innocent Western stall vendor has to bear the brunt of the boys’ undiscerning post as their operations and reputation are affected. Likewise, the school’s reputation in upholding hygiene standards and educating its students against disinformation would also be affected. Time and manpower will also be lost in carrying out investigations. These parties would find it rather unfair and burdensome having to resolve the misunderstanding caused by disinformation. School and Staff Western food stall vendor

What might be the consequences for the various parties What might be the consequences for the various parties? How would you feel if you were them? Reputational loss Guilt Upset with the inconvenience and having being misled May inspire copycat pranks As for Ali and Shawn, they would be perceived as being childish and deceitful, and this would affect their reputation and relationships with their peers. Evie may feel guilty for not speaking up. he impact on the other students could be mixed. Ali & Shawn Evie Other Students

What are some examples and tell-tale signs of false information in this case study and beyond that you are aware of? Share with your child In this case, the news or information is sensational (very astonishing, shocking or scandalous) Such stories usually provide sketchy details about the time, place and identities of individuals interviewed.

What are some examples and tell-tale signs of false information in this case study and beyond that you are aware of? Share with your child. In other cases, we may also encounter content that sounds too good to be true, like offers or freebies. These are usually scams aimed at tempting people into submitting personal details or payment. There may also be links that will link to fake or harmful websites. Do not click on links without checking if it is a genuine offer.

What are some examples and tell-tale signs of false information in this case study and beyond that you are aware of? Share with your child. Ignore messages with URL links that are unknown or mimic official websites. Look out for grammatical or spelling errors.

IMPACT OF Online Falsehoods So how are we impacted by online falsehoods?

Impact of Online Falsehoods This clip by the Media Literacy Council highlights some key impact. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcDROfgVq24 https://www.betterinternet.sg/

MOE’s Cyber Wellness Education So how does MOE’s Cyber Wellness Educational efforts address your child’s needs?

Cyber Wellness Key Messages ICT is an integral part of the learning environment Cyber Wellness Education anchored on three CW principles These principles will anchor a child’s well-being online, as they can make careful and well-considered decisions. With ICT as an integral part of the learning environment, MOE advocates for 3 key principles to support students’ well-being in the online space. The first principle: Respect for Self and Others reminds students to uphold their own dignity when online (e.g. share appropriate content, participate in only legal online activities). It guides students to respect others (e.g., put themselves in others’ shoes; accept diverse views and opinions, give credit when using other people’s work and seek permission where necessary, and to avoid sharing hurtful materials.) The second principle: Safe and Responsible Use teaches students about the risks of harmful and illegal online behaviour, inappropriate online content, and to take steps to protect themselves (e.g., to keep their personal information private, verify the reliability of information sources). This principle also guides students to maintain a healthy balance of online and offline activities. The third principle is Positive Peer Influence which encourages students to be a positive role model online and to advocate positive online behaviour. This includes sharing healthy and positive content, using technology for good, and standing up for victims of cyber bullying.

MOE’s Cyber Wellness Education MOE’s Cyber Wellness Education comprises the following components to reinforce the importance of Cyber Wellness and its messages. MOE’s Cyber Wellness Education comprises a) CW lessons in the formal curriculum and b) school-wide programmes (e.g. CW assembly talks, CW activities) to reinforce the importance of CW and its messages. Schools carry out CW lessons via the Form Teacher Guidance Period (in Primary schools) and in the Character and Citizenship Education (CCE) lessons (in Secondary Schools and Pre-University). These CW lessons aim to equip students with life-long social-emotional competencies and sound values, so that they can become safe, respectful, and responsible users of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Beyond CW lessons in FTGP and CCE, subject teachers infuse new media literacies as well as CW skills (e.g., not sharing of passwords, logging out of shared computers) into ICT-enabled lessons. CW school programmes, such as Assembly talks and Cyber Wellness Day, supplement the lessons.

School-wide Programmes Examples of School-wide Programmes “Schools are encouraged to share with parents their school-based CW programmes to create greater awareness of how their children are benefitting from the programmes.” For e.g. Schools can share with parents their school’s cyber wellness student ambassador programme here (i.e. how their students have led in the promotion of cyber wellness messages and provided peer support for cyber issues.) Schools are guided by the CW framework to plan and implement CW programmes which are customised to the students’ profile and needs. For example, we conduct …< School to insert relevant activities such as CW Workshops, Assembly Talks, CW Activities, CW Day/Week>. Examples could be specific to helping students create and manage online content.

Parents As Partners

How Can Parents Help? Parents can help by: Being a good role model e.g. not participating in the posting or sharing of unverified information, and informing senders of the misinformation Sharing examples of positive online expressions with their children e.g. inspirational stories from social media Parents can help by role modeling good practices and sharing positive examples.

How Can Parents Help? Parents can help by: Encouraging use of the T.H.I.N.K. framework before posting anything online Is it True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, and Kind? Helping your child understand that sharing false or misleading information can create unnecessary misunderstanding and hurt the reputation of self and others It will also be hard to undo the damage once the information is spread or further misinterpreted by others. Very importantly, help your child understand the importance of not posting anything about themselves or others that is not True, Helpful, Inspiring, Necessary, and Kind. This is because things may not always be understood by others online as intended and when that happens and the post gets distributed, it is hard to manage the consequences or delete the post completely. References: Media Wise Youth Guide betterinternet.sg/-/media/Resources/PDFs/Youth-Guides/Media-Wise-Youth-Guide.pdf

How Can Parents Help? Parents can help by: Encouraging the verification of information: Depending on the type of information received, check against a few authoritative sources like the school, the government or mainstream news sites. Check with a trusted adult. Use fact-checking websites e.g. (www.gov.sg/factually) Do a reverse image search. Look at the language Parents can also help by role-modeling and reminding your children to check whether the information they receive is true using these methods.

How Can Parents Help? Parents can help by: Monitoring the interactions of their children with others on social media or online games Alerting teachers if you think something is not right Lastly, we would like to encourage parents to have conversations regularly with your children about what they encounter online and their interactions with others. Do alert teachers if you think something is not going well.

Key Messages To Parents Role model online discernment Monitor online interactions Encourage use of the T.H.I.N.K. framework In summary, parents can help children with appropriate online expressions by: Monitoring their online interactions Role modelling online discernment Encouraging them to use the T.H.I.N.K. framework Emphasising the need to verify information Emphasise the need to verify information

Resources MOE Cyber Wellness Portal Useful tips, strategies and resources on various cyber issues ictconnection.moe.edu.sg/cyber-wellness Get Smart with Sherlock Video and e-book series by Media Literacy Council how to help you understand what fake news is and how to identify it https://www.betterinternet.sg/Campaign-2019/Resources/Get-Smart-with-Sherlock We believe that Cyber Wellness is an area that schools and parents must work together. To support you in this endeavour, there are several resources provided by MOE and other local agencies. We hope that you will find them useful. Combating Fake News Multi-lingual resources by the National Library Board on fake news and ways to fact-check  http://www.nlb.gov.sg/sure/

Give Us Your Feedback! go.gov.sg/connect-priparents-t2 

Every Parent A Supportive Partner We are all here to build the next generation to be future-ready and responsible digital learners.