Safer Internet Day
Over the course of the year, TY students and SID ambassadors Darragh Tyrrell and Peter Dillon have been organising the school’s first Safer Internet Day. Safer Internet Day is an initiative to create awareness of a better internet for all users. It is celebrated not only in Ireland but across Europe.
At the start of the year, Darragh and Peter were given the choice of what theme they would like our school's Safer Internet Day to be based around. To decide this, they sent out a poll to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-year students with all the themes listed, asking students to pick the theme they thought was most important. When the results were in, the theme chosen by students was Cyberbullying.
After this decision was made, Darragh and Peter got busy organising the big day and attended each of the webinars hosted by Webwise. In these webinars, they discussed different ways of keeping students engaged while presenting. They discussed this and more with fellow SID ambassadors from schools all over the country.
After the New Year, it was time for all SID ambassadors to meet in person for the first time at Google HQ in Dublin for an in-person training day. During the day, they mainly discussed the effects and ethics of AI. There was also a guest panel which included journalist Elaine Burke, comedian Rachel Galvo, and researcher Dr. Donal Mulligan. The training day gave Darragh and Peter lots of ideas to implement into the school’s own Safer Internet Day.
A few weeks later, the lads formed a committee to help with the workload and to co-present on the day. In the lead-up to the event, the committee put posters up around the school, created a cyberbullying Kahoot quiz, and made the PowerPoint that would be used during the presentations. The committee also arranged a visit from local TikTok influencer Cian Costelloe to talk about his experience with cyberbullying and hate online.
Finally, after months of preparation, the day had arrived. The committee was split into two groups and went around to 1st and 2nd-year CSPE classes to present and talk about cyberbullying. The lads presented to different classes throughout the morning and received great feedback from both students and teachers. In the afternoon, Cian Costelloe arrived to talk to a 2nd-year class about his personal experiences with cyberbullying. It gave the lads an idea of what cyberbullying can look like on a larger scale.
And with that, the school's first-ever Safer Internet Day had come to an end. Darragh, Peter, and the committee—including Ervin Gorondi, Martin Petruf, Cormac Byrne, and Eoin Doyle—did a fantastic job both organising and representing the school. Let's hope next year's Safer Internet Day in our school is even bigger and better!