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Speak Up About Contact Risks: Create a Podcast or Fact Sheet

Child Safeguarding Statement
Some resources and activities may prompt a child to remember and potentially share an experience of harm. Make sure you’re familiar with your school's safeguarding policies and procedures so you can confidently report safety and well-being concerns.
Prepare students for the session by discussing: their right to be safe and respected; what to do if discussing online safety makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe; and how to seek help if they feel or have felt unsafe. Use this resource available on the website.
Speak Up About Contact Risks: Create a Podcast or Fact Sheet
Learners explore contact risks by creating a podcast or fact sheet, building skills to stay safe when connecting with others online.
Lesson details
Contact
About this Risk Area
When potentially harmful contact is initiated by others online, including strangers who may pose risks such as exploitation or identity theft.
Example topics:
- Online privacy and security practices, including setting strong passwords and managing privacy settings.
- Recognising and responding to online threats, such as phishing scams and identity theft.
- Establishing boundaries for online interactions and understanding the risks of sharing personal information online.
- Seeking help and reporting inappropriate or harmful online behaviour to trusted adults or authorities.
The resources for this risk area support learning in relation to safe online communication, privacy settings, and establishing boundaries for interacting with others on the internet.
This lesson helps learners explore the Contact risk area of online safety — understanding how to stay safe when interacting with others online. Topics may include recognising unsafe contact, responding to unwanted messages, and knowing when and how to seek help from a trusted adult. It is the result of a co-design project undertaken with Year 5-6 learners at St Mary’s School, Whittlesea, in collaboration with their teacher, Mrs. Kayla Borg, STEM specialist and eSmart coordinator. Listen to their learner-led podcast here.
The class may choose to either:
Create a podcast:
Develop skills in research, scripting, and interviewing to produce a podcast on a topic relevant to the Contact risk area.
OR
Design a fact sheet:
Craft an informative guide to share helpful tips and insights with their community relevant to the Contact risk area.
Learning Intentions
Learners will:
- Develop media production skills by producing either a podcast or a digital fact sheet.
- Apply their understanding of themes in the Contact risk area of online safety by crafting messages that help their community to stay safe online.
These intentions are evidenced when learners can:
- Explain key concepts of the Contact risk area and apply this knowledge to real-life situations.
- Create well-organised and engaging media in a collaborative environment.
Educators will:
- Guide learners in developing content that addresses the Contact risk area in creative and engaging ways.
- Facilitate discussions that help learners analyse online Contact risks and apply their understanding in practical contexts.
These intentions are evidenced when educators can:
- Provide clear guidance in media production skills, ensuring learners successfully research, script, and produce their podcast or fact sheet.
- Support learners in identifying and addressing Contact risks through their media projects.
Curriculum alignment
Australian Curriculum (Version 9.0)
The Australian Curriculum outlines the fundamental knowledge, comprehension, and abilities students are expected to acquire as they advance through the initial 11 years of schooling.
Podcasting
Years 5 & 6: Health and Physical Education
- AC9HP6P08: Analyse and rehearse protective behaviours and help-seeking strategies that can be used in a range of online and offline situations.
- AC9HP6P10: Analyse how behaviours influence the health, safety, relationships and wellbeing of individuals and communities.
- AC9HP6M06: Propose and explain strategies to increase physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviour levels in their lives.
Years 5 & 6: Media Arts
- AC9AMA6D01: Develop media production skills to communicate ideas, perspectives and/or meaning through manipulation of media languages, including images, sounds, texts and/or interactive elements, and media technologies
- AC9AMA6C01: Use media languages, media technologies and production processes to construct media arts works that communicate ideas, perspectives and/or meaning for specific audiences
Year 5: English
- AC9E5LA02: Understand how to move beyond making bare assertions by taking account of differing ideas or opinions and authoritative sources.
- AC9E5LY02: Use appropriate interaction skills including paraphrasing and questioning to clarify meaning, make connections to own experience, and present and justify an opinion or idea.
- AC9E5LY05: Use comprehension strategies such as visualising, predicting, connecting, summarising, monitoring and questioning to build literal and inferred meaning to evaluate information and ideas.
Year 6: English
- AC9E6LY02: Use interaction skills and awareness of formality when paraphrasing, questioning, clarifying and interrogating ideas, developing and supporting arguments, and sharing and evaluating information, experiences and opinions.
- AC9E6LY05: Use comprehension strategies such as visualising, predicting, connecting, summarising, monitoring and questioning to build literal and inferred meaning, and to connect and compare content from a variety of sources.
Fact sheets
Years 5 & 6: Health and Physical Education
- AC9HP6P08: Analyse and rehearse protective behaviours and help-seeking strategies that can be used in a range of online and offline situations.
- AC9HP6P10: Analyse how behaviours influence the health, safety, relationships and wellbeing of individuals and communities.
- AC9HP6M06: Propose and explain strategies to increase physical activity and reduce sedentary behaviour levels in their lives.
Years 5 & 6: Digital Technologies
- AC9TDI6P07: Select and use appropriate digital tools effectively to create, locate and communicate content, applying common conventions.
- AC9TDI6P08: Select and use appropriate digital tools effectively to share content online, plan tasks and collaborate on projects, demonstrating agreed behaviours.
Year 5: English
- AC9E5LA02: Understand how to move beyond making bare assertions by taking account of differing ideas or opinions and authoritative sources.
- AC9E5LY05: Use comprehension strategies such as visualising, predicting, connecting, summarising, monitoring and questioning to build literal and inferred meaning to evaluate information and ideas.
Year 6: English
- AC9E6LA02: Understand the uses of objective and subjective language, and identify bias.
- AC9E6LA07: Identify and explain how images, figures, tables, diagrams, maps and graphs contribute to meaning.
- AC9E6LY03: Analyse how text structures and language features work together to meet the purpose of a text, and engage and influence audiences.
- AC9E6LY05: Use comprehension strategies such as visualising, predicting, connecting, summarising, monitoring and questioning to build literal and inferred meaning, and to connect and compare content from a variety of sources.
My Time, Our Place – Framework for School Age Care in Australia
This framework assists educators to provide children and young people with opportunities to maximise their potential and develop a foundation for successful lifelong learning. The Framework has been designed for use by approved providers and school age care educators working in partnership with children and young people, their families and the community, including schools.
Outcome 2: Children are connected with and contribute to their world.
Children learn about the impact of sharing information and how to engage positively with their community.
This is evident when children:
- Identify how their actions in sharing or addressing misinformation affect others in online spaces.
Outcome 4: Children are confident and involved learners.
Children engage in critical thinking and problem-solving to assess the reliability of information.
This is evident when children:
- Use fact-checking tools to verify information and confidently articulate their findings.
Outcome 5: Children are effective communicators.
Children share their understanding of misinformation and strategies for addressing it through collaborative activities.
This is evident when children:
- Communicate their findings about misinformation to peers and trusted adults, fostering shared learning.
CASEL Framework
This Framework creates a foundation for applying evidence-based, Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) strategies both at school and in the broader community. Its aim is to support the cultivation of SEL skills and environments that advance students’ learning and development.
Responsible Decision-Making
The lesson encourages critical thinking and informed decision-making in digital interactions. This is evident when learners:
- Use the “Pause, Notice, Question, Act” framework to analyse the credibility of online information and decide how to respond.
- Evaluate the consequences of sharing misinformation, both for themselves and for their communities.
Bournemouth University Theory of Change
This project, funded by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) as part of the UK government's Online Literacy Media Strategy, aims to empower people to stay safe online by being able to critically evaluate what they see and read on the internet. It offers a transferable and sustainable framework and methodology that can not only be used for the independent evaluation of media literacy projects but also to inform their future design.
Consequences
Media literacy can contribute to significant change if we take media literacy actions that can make a constructive and positive impact on the media ecosystem in our lives and on the lives of others in a functioning civic society. Consequences may include challenging misinformation, producing media content and / or online information, sharing trustworthy content on social media, trying to increase the representation of people who are marginalised in the media, data activism or more critical and mindful non-action (e.g. not sharing misinformation, changing data settings).
National Association of Media Literacy Education (NAMLE)
The NAMLE Framework outlines the foundational concepts and principles for teaching and learning about media literacy. Media literacy, as defined by NAMLE, is the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication.
Core Principle 1
- 1.1: MLE encourages learners to ask critical questions about the media they engage with.
- 1.2: MLE intersects with other literacies, such as critical thinking, social literacy, and emotional literacy.
Core Principle 2
- 2.1: MLE includes digital, visual, and social media as valid forms of literacy.
- 2.3: MLE integrates emotional and physiological responses to media.
Core Principle 3
- 3.1: MLE equips learners with transferable skills for evaluating media and making informed decisions.
Core Principle 6
- 6.1: MLE promotes responsible and ethical behaviour in digital interactions.
- 6.3: MLE encourages collaborative problem-solving and dialogue.
