Our aim: We know for parents and carers, the safety of their children is their number one priority – in the playground, at home and online. As a trusted ISP, TelstraClear has recognised the need to protect Kiwi kids from the darker side of the internet, in terms of cyber-bullying and online predators. Working with Dr Martyn Wild, a leading expert on cyber safety for children, TelstraClear has provided cyber safety resources to parents, and is now supporting Dr Wild with the New Zealand-wide rollout of SuperClubsPLUS; a protected, online social learning network for 6-12 year-olds to be used in New Zealand schools.
Our community partner: SuperClubsPLUS.
Our actions: In 2010 TelstraClear supported the SuperClubsPLUS pilot in 23 New Zealand schools, involving 2,200 children across the country. Following the successful pilot, with the support of the Ministry of Education, TelstraClear and SuperClubsPLUS are now embarking on a national rollout to primary and intermediate schools with the view to the site becoming a core component of the school’s ICT learning environment.
This pilot, followed by the Ministry of Education and Netsafe, found that:
• 100% of the teachers involved rated SuperClubsPLUS highly or very highly as a resource for improving children’s online behaviour.
• 88% of teachers surveyed have been able to address Key competencies through using SuperClubsPLUS. ‘Relating to Others’ was the most readily addressed competency (82%) and ‘Managing self ‘(76%) was also addressed by teachers.
• SuperClubsPLUS has proven to be useful for teachers for encouraging student values (94%). Teachers were able to encourage most of the values, with ‘Respect for Self and Others’ rating most highly (88%), followed by ‘Community and Participation’ (82%).
• SuperClubsPLUS can be used as a resource across most Learning Areas, in varying ways. 88% of teachers surveyed used SuperClubsPLUS in E-Learning and 59% of teachers also used SuperClubsPLUS for Literacy.
• 96% of teachers agreed or strongly agreed that their students enjoy using SuperClubsPLUS.
SuperClubsPLUS now involves over 250,000 children around the world, including almost 140,000 in Australia. It is a positive and fun online experience where children can play, talk, work and learn collaboratively with other children without attracting the attention of online predators.
Only registered children and highly trained SuperClubsPLUS ‘mediators’ can access or view the site, and content can only be posted when the site is live and supervised. In this safe environment, children are able to collaborate, create, socialise and contribute across a wide range of projects and activities, all of which help them build strong, resilient and responsible digital skills in an increasingly online world.
Key to the safe environment of SuperClubsPLUS are the following safety stops that provide for the protection of young children through:
• Validation of identity – each child is age-validated (i.e. authenticated) in a 2-part, triangulated process, using data taken from an individual child’s school and their class teacher.
• Intelligent mediation tools – a set of real-time tools and processes built into the SuperClubsPLUS ‘engine’ to provide feedback to children (and teachers) when they exhibit an inappropriate and/or unsafe behaviour.
• Real-time mediation – SuperClubsPLUS is a mediated site at all times the site is ‘Live’. All mediators are trained and employed by SuperClubsPLUS following up to 120 hours of face-to-face and online training. All mediators are subject to on-going police-checks and a range of internal (to SuperClubsPLUS) processes that govern how they work with children.
• Educative processes – children are provided with a structured environment in which they learn to practice and to internalise safe and responsible behaviours, through accredited ‘cybersafe’ learning content and activities.
• Graduation – SuperClubsPLUS is designed for children to 12 years. At 12 (sometimes 13 years, depending on a countries/states primary to high school transition year), SuperClubsPLUS children are graduated to a sister site, GoldStarCafe.
Our footprint: TelstraClear has funded the New Zealand implementation of SuperClubsPLUS and is working with Dr Wild to promote the site through a variety of educational and ICT channels. We also enjoy the many conversations we have with our customers, networks, industry and business leaders, in response to the issue of cyber safety and online privacy. Through these discussions we can connect people and organisations with SuperClubsPLUS, with the vision to empower children to learn key online skills and become the informed and active cyber-citizens of tomorrow.
Our next steps: As part of the SuperClubsPLUS advisory group, TelstraClear are working with Dr Wild to implement a governance model to deliver SuperClubsPLUS to New Zealand children and schools in a sustainable way over the coming years. We are also thinking about new, innovative learning channels, success metrics and hot-seat contenders (special SuperClubsPLUS ‘live’ guests).
Our goal with Dr Wild, is to register up to 80,000 New Zealand students within three years, providing SuperClubsPLUS as a significant cyber safety learning resource for primary students across the country.
Our corporate citizenship contact: For more info, contact Nicola Libeau, Corporate Citizenship Manager via citizenship@telstraclear.co.nz.
SuperClubsPLUS
redzephyr 10°
Anne McGregor 30°
Luke Patterson 40°
Mathew Bourne 30°
Nick Hewlett 25°
This initiative is a clever way to help our kids get used to social media. They want to get involved but need some tools to make sure they are able to keep themselves safe. I'll be signing my son up this week.