Safe Internet For All Erasmus Project

Project Title

Safe Internet For All

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Pedagogy and didactics

Project Summary

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become very useful for everyday activity, communication, commerce, entertainment, etc. Especially the Internet has a tremendous potential and a lot to offer in terms of services. It is an evolving medium that continuously presents new functionalities, such as web 2.0 that can even be effectively used in learning.

However, like other innovations, it has its own disadvantages so it is important that students learn how to use it properly. Iit is essential for the school community to develop the right attitude towards the internet and ICT. Most students (even some teachers) are completely unaware of dangers, safety risks, security matters, health matters and matters of ethics that are related to the use of the Internet. It is important that all students receive e-safety education at school. Teachers also need further training in order to ensure they have the knowledge and confidence to deliver e-safety education and respond to any safety issues.

SIFA focused on making the school community aware of the dangers and risks of the Internet, on informing, educating and preparing students and teachers in ways to cope with these. We believe that through SIFA activities we have raised awareness and delivered safety messages to students and their parents, helped our schools develop an e-safety policy and support the development of functional and critical digital literacy and internet safety skills. SIFA was a strategic partnership among schools which explored and studied contact and content risks of ICT mostly Internet tools concerning our students. The participating schools were: the 2nd Lyceum of Kos (Greece – coordinator), Fridagymnasiet (Sweden), HAK Ybbs (Austria), Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Piotra Skargi (Poland) and Os vidaregåande skule (Norway) and teachers and students from these schools concentrated on aspects concerning the safe use of ICT and Internet. Five different exchanges were held in each country, each dealing with a different dimension of the matter, i.e:
1st: (Austria) Internet addictions (excessive use of social networks, gaming etc).
2nd: (Norway) matters concerning health (social isolation, depression, etc).
3rd: (Sweden) security (viruses, malware, spam, phishing, etc).
4th: (Greece) matters of ethics (copyright, plagiarism,etc).
5th: (Poland) safety (cyberbullying, grooming, etc).

Before each meeting there was an appropriate preparation, concerning presentations, collection of stats and data, relevant research results, etc.
During each meeting all groups participated in activities relevant to the specific theme of the meeting, as described above. Follow up activities took place, such as courses organized by students, presentations, dissemination and evaluation activities.
We believe that SIFA did help students and teachers to:
Recognize online risks
Protect personal information and reputation
Learn where/how to get help
Demonstrate/advocate for ethical and legal behaviors
Learn about plagiarism
Respect copyright
Make ethical and legal decisions
After the meetings, through specific activities during which student acted as teachers for their peers, student engagement increased and an authentic sense of urgency around their education was fostered. Opportunities for students to explore teaching and learning in a new and remixed way were created. Students had plenty of opportunities to publicly share their own understanding, thus fostering authentic dialogue about what they learned. These processes were enhanced through reflection. The project also promoted the professional development of teachers concentrating on the strategic use of ICT. For this purpose we created a Learning Community among teachers, using web 2.0. Among other SIFA promoted take-up of innovative practices in education, collaborative learning and critical thinking, open and flexible learning, virtual mobility and other innovative learning methods.
Additionally 3 transnational teacher meetings were held (one in the beginning, one in the middle and one in the end) that helped organize and manage the learning activities and evaluate the project. Evaluation was done after each meeting and during the transnational teacher meetings.
An important product of SIFA was the Research that was conducted in two ways. A more general research with a pre-test and a Post-test and a smaller scale research before and after each meeting. It served as an intellectual output that is beyond plagiarism and upgrades the quality of the results, but it also served as a tool for internal evaluation. The following research questions were dealt with (concerning 5 major problems/topics related to internet use):
1st: Do students know what every problem (topic) is about?
2nd: Have students experienced such problems?
3nd: Do students know how to handle these?
SIFA accomplished all its goals, had a great impact to the school community and society and will continue to do so through dissemination activities.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 135980 Eur

Project Coordinator

2nd Lyceum of Kos & Country: EL

Project Partners

• Liceum Ogolnoksztalcace im. Piotra Skargi
• Os vidaraegåande skule
• Fridagymnasiet
• HAK Ybbs