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Speak Up About Content 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 Content Risks: Create a Podcast or Fact Sheet
Empowering learners to explore online content risks through podcast creation or fact sheet design.
Lesson details
Content
About this Risk Area
The material children may come across online, including inappropriate or harmful content.
Example topics:
- Strategies for avoidance and help-seeking in relation to problematic and/or offensive content.
- Recognising and critically analysing misinformation, fake news, and clickbait.
- Understanding the impact of online content on emotions, attitudes, and behaviours.
- Respecting intellectual property rights and understanding copyright laws.
The resources for this risk area provide guidance on navigating and critically evaluating online material.
This lesson helps learners explore the "Content" risk area of online safety — understanding harmful, misleading, or inappropriate content they may encounter online. Topics may include identifying fake news, managing disturbing media, or understanding clickbait. 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 Content risk area.
OR
Design a fact sheet:
Craft an informative guide to share helpful tips and insights with their community relevant to the Content risk area.
Learning Intentions
Learners will:
- Develop media production skills by producing either a podcast or a digital fact sheet.
- Apply their understanding of risks in the Content risk area by crafting messages that help their community to stay safe and informed online.
These intentions are evidenced when learners can:
- Explain key concepts of the Content risk area of online safety, 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 Content risk themes in creative and engaging ways.
- Facilitate discussions that help learners analyse online content 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 Content 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 1: Children and young people have a strong sense of identity.
Children learn to understand their role in digital spaces and how they interact with others safely and respectfully.
This is evident when children:
- Develop awareness of their personal boundaries online and demonstrate respect for the boundaries of others.
- Explore ways to protect their identity and privacy in digital environments.
Outcome 2: Children and young people are connected with and contribute to their world.
Children learn about the impact of their actions in online communities and how to engage positively.
This is evident when children:
- Recognise the importance of fair and authentic interactions in online games and communities.
- Identify ways to contribute safely and responsibly to shared digital spaces.
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 abilities to make caring and constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions across diverse situations. This includes the capacities to consider ethical standards and safety concerns, and to evaluate the benefits and consequences of various actions for personal, social, and collective well-being. Such as:
- Demonstrating curiosity and open-mindedness.
- Learning how to make a reasoned judgment after analyzing information, data, and facts.
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.
- Awareness : Media literacy enables people to have a critical awareness of how media and information represent people, events, issues and places. On a larger scale, media literacy helps us to understand how the media environment we are engaging with is constructed, for example in terms of how diverse it is, who owns or controls different media sources and how digital and social media is governed, designed and manipulated. Media literacy also involves critical awareness about the role of data and algorithms in everyday life and with regard to citizenship, education, work and health.
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
1.2: Media Literacy Education (MLE) intersects with other literacies, such as information, digital, and social-emotional literacies.
1.4 MLE values inquiry of contemporary media experiences that are culturally relevant in both the learning environment and the everyday lives of learners.
Core Principle 2
2.1 MLE teaches that all media experiences are constructed and prepares people to engage in critical analysis and reflection of these experiences.
2.3 MLE helps learners identify biases within their own and others’ media experiences.
Core Principle 9
9.3: MLE amplifies historically marginalised voices by including opportunities to examine cross-cultural media and international perspectives.
9.4: MLE explores issues of representations such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age, ability, and socio-economic status.

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