eSafety Early Years professional learning

eSafety has teamed up with Early Childhood Australia to create a series of online learning modules for early childhood educators.

These modules provide comprehensive, competency-based learning in the ever-evolving area of online safety.

This training has been updated to draw on findings from a ground-breaking four-year Australian Research Council Linkage Program looking at how to safely engage children in the digital world. eSafety was a proud contributor to the Young Children in Digital Society research project.

Modules are self-paced and interactive, ensuring the learner is well equipped to provide a safer online environment and support children and families in their digital technology experiences.

Keeping the child at the centre of all learning and focusing on their capabilities with digital technologies, the modules examine and explain online safety concepts through a child’s experience in digital contexts.

All modules feature advice and information from researchers and experts in the field of technology in the early years, as well as practical examples from early learning services. 

The modules

Three educator modules focus on different types of digital contexts, identify the risks associated with them and address how these risks can be mitigated.

We SAY and SHARE with technology examines the benefits and risks associated with using technologies as a communication tool.

We MAKE and DO using technology explores the uses and risks of technology as a tool for creation.

We WATCH and EXPLORE on technology explains the benefits and risks associated with using technologies to find out information or for entertainment.

Practical advice for building good habits, self-regulation skills and critical thinking around children’s technology use is explained through each module in four key messages:

• Be safe
• Be kind
• Ask for help
• Make good choices

A fourth module, for Directors and Managers, is focused on policies and processes designed to ensure a safe online environment in early learning services. Created in consultation with ACECEQA, the Australian Children's Education and Care Quality Authority, this module aligns with the National Quality Standard and Early Years Learning Framework.

You can access all four modules, free of charge, through Early Childhood Australia’s Learning Hub.