Slovenian elementary school pupils and their internet use

Last month I and my two colleagues did a research about Slovenian elementary school pupils and their Internet use. It was for our exam research project in the shape of an article for some other course, and because it dealt with such topic, I would like to present some interesting findings here.
Our research question that we tried to answer was: To what extent are elementary school pupils acquainted with the Internet as a tool for education and to what extent do they use it as such. We interviewed 5 pupils, ranging from 11 to 14 years, 5 parents and 3 school teachers. Of course it isn’t a very representative study, but nevertheless, the results were very interesting and they gave us an idea, how the internet is used by this demographic group.
The interviews showed us that pupils do spend time on the Internet, but use it more for private purposes and not for education. They use tools like Google, Messenger, Facebook and game sites. They use it in a lesser extent for education, mainly for finding pictures and information for their reports. They also use Wikipedia and sites, where they can find book reviews for home reading assignments. They are aware of some risks that can be found on the Internet, mostly they mentioned viruses, talking to strangers and giving their personal information.
Their parents are also aware of the risks/dangers, but they trust their children, so they have no bigger restrictions. They don’t forbid them to watch any content, mostly they just limit their time spent on the Internet.
The teachers think positively about using the Internet for educational purposes, but have limits in the shape of school curriculums, so they can’t teach the children basic computer and Internet skills as much as they would like. They think the children’s parents are the ones that should teach them.
All-in-all, we found out that internet literacy in Slovenian elementary schools is weak, so is the children’s Internet use for educational purposes. Attempts of the teachers to teach them the proper use of the internet is inadequate and so is the parents’ involvement in teaching the children Internet literacy. The children gain their first Internet experiences all by themselves or with the help of their peers. Not all teachers realize how important internet literacy is and will be in the future – the Internet could be a really good source and tool in the process of education, but there are no clear guidelines for teaching internet literacy set in Slovenia, which consecutively means that the potential of the Internet as a educational tool is neglected. And because of this, all three sides loose – the parents, the teachers and mostly the teachers.
We can just hope that this will change soon.