Safer Internet day takes place on 12th February and Childnet is delighted to support and promote a range of activities being held on the day both in the UK and worldwide.
To coincide with Safer Internet Day Childnet is launching a special interactive widget for children on the Childnet ‘Digizen’ website. The widget is designed to enable young people to express their wishes for their selves, their friends and their wider world and express their online citizenship values. Childnet’s youth panel gave advice on the types of wishes which young people can choose in designing their special widget, with choices including serious as well as fun statements. Once a young person completes the widget they can then upload this to their website or social networking page thereby giving an expression of their commitment to online citizenship and safe use of the technology.
Ellen Coen Childnet’s schools manager says,
“It is really important that we utilise the actual web2 tools and provide resources which children can access in their own online environments. Instead of presuming children will come to our education and awareness websites, we must reach young people where they are and we want to provide tools such as widgets which they can customise and upload to their websites thereby allowing them to express to their peers their wishes for a safe and creative online experience.”
In one sense every day is internet safety day for Childnet and as like other days Childnet staff will be working in schools supporting children, teachers and parents in understanding the internet safety issues.
In the UK the Internet Safety Day programme is being co-ordinated by The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), who have made a range of school assembly resources available for schools to use during the month of February from their Thinkuknow website See www.thinkuknow.co.uk
Further activities including online competitions and a blogathon are being co-ordinated by the Safer Internet Programme and full details are available at www.saferinternet.org.
For more information contact:
Stephen Carrick-Davies
Childnet’s CEO
