'We have to keep pace,' says Leitrim expert training Ireland's teachers to teach kids to stay safe online

Teacher education is a powerful “non-legislative weapon” to equip children with the tools to deal with the dangers posed by the online world, according to Dr Louise Heeran-Flynn an Assistant Professor in Teacher Education in the School of Education at Trinity College Dublin.

As part of her role in Trinity College Dublin, Dr Heeran-Flynn works on training student teachers to deal with that very problem.

“Digital literacy, including disinformation, media, AI literacy, digital wellbeing- all of those things- we have to embed them into our pre-teacher training,” she said.

“We also have to make sure that we have mechanisms that allow for updates, because we know we have to keep pace.”

Teachers report that confidence in their ability to teach digital literacy skills to students drops the longer they are in the classroom.

The notion that young teachers should know how to deal with these technologies just because they are “digital natives” is a dangerous fallacy, according to Dr Heeran-Flynn.

“I think it’s really important that we understand that we have to ensure that our student teachers are equipped and don’t make assumptions that they implicitly know something because that isn’t always the case.

Moreover, often young teachers themselves need to learn to navigate the new digital landscape as well as their students.

“We’re certainly seeing that they have to learn not just to teach digital education, but they also have to learn how to manage their own digital wellbeing, their own digital reputation.“

Though she believes that teachers must be equipped to prepare children, they need to be part of “a whole systems approach to children’s safety” where governments, parents, and teachers work together to keep children safe.