SOME years ago when it came to teaching safety to students, the lessons typically focused on "stranger danger".
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Now those lessons are being learned once more, but they extend to the many online platforms now available to the young people of today's world.
Late last month, students from St Francis College in Leeton were armed with online safety skills after participating in a "digital thumbprint" roadshow, which was presented at the school by Optus.
The idea of the free initiative was to provide tools and support to students from years 7 to 11 with simple and effective ways to stay safe when online.
Optus' territory general manager for southern NSW Matt Connell explained why the program was important.
He said safe digital practice started with a simple conversation around some of the challenging topics related to the online world.
"(It is) important ... to highlight to students that they don't have to be an expert at navigating the internet to practice safe habits," he said.
"In this day and age students are always online, whether it's to complete school work or stay in touch with their friends and family.
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"The program has been designed to incorporate an interactive and original approach to educating students on key issues such as how to protect your identity and information online and building positive and respectful relationships online.
"Students learned how easily things can spread when shared on the internet to make sure they are aware of how valuable taking precautions such as creating strong passwords and enabling privacy settings on social media can be."
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 99 per cent of young people aged 15 to 17 are online, making this age group the highest users.
They spend an average of 18 hours per week online.
St Francis College assistant principal Tonetta Iannelli said the workshops highlighted the key areas the school community has been working on when it comes to cyber safety.
"The sessions supported our pastoral and wellbeing programs that are developed to educate our young people on the significance of keeping their online profiles authentic, while adopting measures to ensure they are safe and protected as they interact in the social media world," she said.
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