Should e-safety be rebranded?

As the Head of Computing and ICT in my school I have a de-facto role in leading the teaching of e-safety.  As I have been a teacher in Australia for some time - I am aware of the issues, I know that most information is available from ACMA via their http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/ website. I also know that this website is probably always going to be about 3-6 months out of date.  It is what it is, and it is an excellent resource.

Here in the UK things are somewhat different.  The tech in students pockets tends to be more up to date, More students have smart phones, less regard for authority, and less regard for moral values.  Moral education may be self-conflicted in Australia, but it is positively self-abhorrent in the UK.  As for a central coherrent repository for advice - The closest I have found is http://www.bullying.co.uk/ which only deals with one issue.  Coupled with larger schools these factors combine to make a seething cesspit of dangers which should not be swept under the carpet.

One of the issues with e-safety is what it is.  The ACMA website covers it by ignoring the definition, and going for the main issues.  In the UK the issues seem separate, and hence coherency is difficult to achieve.  One potential candidate for a definition might be 'staying safe online', or 'staying safe on the internet' but does this definition cover other services such as text messages - (sexting) or more traditional obscene phone calls.  e-safety is nothing new really.

'E-safety' also has too much of a negative connotation. Maybe we should combine the e-safety messages with other more positive things.  If we took a leaf out of the marketeers handbook I think we could make a dramatic difference.  If we renamed 'e-safety' to 'personal brand management' we could teach the same issues in a positive light.  Personal brand management, has positive connotations, with values incorporated. Instead of focussing on the negative, and demonising the social web, we should be promoting the positive aspects of social media, as well as the negative. 

How would this work in practice - well we still need to talk about cyber - bullying - but we can also talk about cyber-supporting, supportive networks and the damage being a cyber bullying does to the bullies personal brand.  We can talk about being supportive to people who are being attacked. We can talk about digital identity, and the importance of personal brand security by securing our passwords.  We can talk about digital commerce, and the importance of online security. We should include cryptography in our conversations.We can talk about personal security, location based services, and also about configuring tour devices when we decide who we want to know where we are. We should not limit ourselves to the internet either - lets include phones, text, and how to talk to people in real life, lest we forget how to.

The social media providers have done a lot to protect their users, its now up to educators to listen more.  Currently facebook is not the demon that the average teacher thinks it is, but by spreading fear, we are at risk of the same failings as we had with the 'just say no' drugs campaigns, or the abstinence only sex education policies.