When Teaching Web Safety Don't Forget to Teach Common Sense

Earlier this week I shared the RADCAB framework for teaching students how to evaluate websites. In the past I've shared other resources for teaching students how to recognize unsafe situations online (Planet Nutshell has a great set of videos on the topic). While these online evaluation resources are useful, don't forget to teach students (children and adults) to use common sense before clicking on a link. I found two good examples of this this morning. Take a look at the screenshots below for explanations. (Feel free to download and use these screenshots in your classroom).

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The picture above is a screenshot of the landing page for "business" that claims to provide website development. The page looks like it's straight out of 1999. That look combined with the fact that I don't know what will happen when I click the picture as the page wants me to, tells me that I probably shouldn't click the picture. If it doesn't look right, don't click it.

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The picture above is a screenshot of my direct message inbox on Twitter. You'll notice the first three messages are short messages with links. I'm not going to click those links because I don't have any context for them. I hadn't had conversations with any of those three people prior to them sending me those vaguely worded messages with links. On a similar note, if those messages said, "someone is saying nasty things about you" followed by a link, I'm not clicking that link. You can read more about that specific situation here.

Below are two helpful reminder videos from Common Craft about this topic.