There has been lots of press coverage recently highlighting the potential dangers of children using social networking sites such as Facebook, Bebo, MySpace etc.  Although these sites have an age restriction in place, many children simply ignore these and submit false date of births to join up.  Research is showing that many children aged 8-17 who use the internet have set up their own profile on a social networking site. Schools are increasingly concerned with their pupils accessing these sites, especially when this is done outside school hours and in many cases, unsupervised.    The allure for children is obvious.  Social networking sites allow children to enter a ‘virtual playground’ where they can easily stay in touch with friends, share experiences, interests, etc.   Social networking sites also provide excellent learning opportunities through various collaborative tools, such as forums, blogs, wikis etc.  These tools provide new opportunities for personal expression, the creation of communities, collaboration and sharing.  However, despite the excellent work done by many schools to help pupils stay safe online, most children are simply not equipped to identify potential threats, when using these sites, and deal with them responsibly.   For example, should they accept someone as a friend when they don’t know them, or what should a pupil do if he or she feels they are being threatened or bullied through a social networking site?

The Ofsted report on ‘Safe use of New Technologies’ states that pupils were ‘not given enough opportunities to learn how to assess and manage risk for themselves’. The dilemma we face is one of exposure and safeguarding.  Essentially, how do we reap the obvious educational benefits of social networking sites whilst at the same time provide safe and monitored access?  Pupils should be empowered to identify and respond accordingly to the potential dangerous of these sites.  With all this in mind, the elearning  team has developed ‘Shaka Tameside’.

Shaka Tameside is a password protected, graphically engaging site, hosted by Tameside and incorporates many of the features and tools available on social networking sites.  These tools could easily be used to support personalised learning.  For example there is pupil email, a pupil blog (online diary), a school wide Wiki (editable encyclopaedia owned by the users of the site), a forum where pupils can express their views and share ideas and a video & photo sharing feature.  In addition to this, there is a ‘Shaka page’ for each pupil where they can collaborate with friends and list their hobbies and interests as well as find and contact others in the school who have similar interests.

Shaka Tameside is proving to be a big hit in Tameside schools.  Teachers are finding that it is the ideal environment to teach pupils about the benefits and dangers, as well as the etiquettes, of social networking.  Safeguarding has very much been paramount in the design and development of Shaka. The site is password protected and a completely enclosed environment.  All activity is logged and recorded and monitoring tools are available for administrative users.  These tools allow administrative users to easily view any activity undertaken in Shaka and deal with misuse quickly and effectively. They also allow the school to control when the site is available and unavailable to pupils.

If you would like to use Shaka Tameside at your school, please contact your designated Account Manager, or Safraz Chaudry on 0161 342 5012, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it