Training parents for detecting and preventing risks on Social Networks and Internet Erasmus Project

Project Title

Training parents for detecting and preventing risks on Social Networks and Internet

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Social dialogue; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Nowadays, Social Networks and the Internet are more than a tool, they have totally changed the way in which society relates. Young people grow immersed in this information society, participating actively in its communication and socialization possibilities.
Social networks are a virtual place where users interact through the Internet. The users themselves provide the major part of the content, through the web, social networks, forums, groups and/or virtual communities. Internet information and communication systems have an extraordinary power.
This exploring line opens a whole world of possibilities for children, expanding their horizons and exposing them to different cultures and ways of life. This also involves their exposure to possible risks during this information way.
Parentnets comes from a reality which is increasingly spreading: teenagers who use technologies that their parents do not know, communicating through on-line tools whose uses and risks parents do not know.
Parentnets is an innovative project, since there are not concrete programmes to teach adults about this topic so far. This project will teach both parents and teachers about the main Social Networks and also about the activities that the underage do in the net, explaining its uses and advantages and emphasizing on detecting and preventing the risks that new technologies can be for the youngest.
To make this learning process as easy and entertaining as possible, a webpage containing a Multimedia Guide and a Multimedia Game have been designed as the main products of the project.
The project has been aimed at the following target groups:
• Parents from any European country, mainly those with short or no knowledge at all of new technologies.
• Teachers from primary and secondary schools interested in using internet security as a transversal subject in students’ education.
• Any other interested person and/or professional who is related to teenagers and finds these free materials useful.
The main results of this project were creating a Multimedia Guide and a Game that contribute to prevent and solve the potential risks of the Internet for children and teenagers. There were three stages in the elaboration process of these materials:
1. A preliminary research has shown the way forward in the project. It was based mainly in the habits and protection measures, so as to the attitudes and knowledge of the parents towards the risks that their children could be exposed to when using the Internet and Social Networks, the protection measures and the needs detected.
With the collected data, a report with the most important results was written, both by country and for the consortium in general. This report is the basis for the following content.
2. A webpage was developed in order to include the aforementioned multimedia tools. This page, apart from being a reference for the project, also supports its spreading.
3. Finally, the two main products and the leitmotiv of the previous stages were published:
Multimedia Guide for parents: a full material where parents, teachers and other interested people can get information about each of the situations into which the game is divided, real situations concerning the topic of the project.
Multimedia Game: it includes 6 teaching units designed as a role-playing game. In it, each player will go through a series of phases where he or she will learn about how to face any problem concerning the potential risks of the Internet and Social Networks.
In addition to these products, there are some informational and explanatory videos that support the target group about the use of the multimedia tools provided. These videos are available in the webpage of the project and in the Youtube channel.
Furthermore, there were four multiplier events in four partner countries of the project: DXEFPIE (Spain), CNP “Stefan Velovan” (Romania), ISCTE (Portugal) and DCU (Ireland).
Complementarily, as intangible results of the project, it is worthy to mention the acquired competences with the target group of the project by using the developed tools. These competences can be defined as content competences, regarding the acquisition of new knowledge about the potential risks of the Internet and Social Networks, so as to digital competence in managing multimedia tools.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 193832 Eur

Project Coordinator

CONSELLERIA DE CULTURA, EDUCACION E ORDENACION UNIVERSITARIA & Country: ES

Project Partners

• DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY
• Virtual Campus Lda
• Asociación No al Acoso Escolar Stop Bullying
• EUROPEAN PARENTS ASSOCIATION
• Colegiul National Pedagogic “Stefan Velovan”
• INSTITUTO UNIVERSITARIO DE LISBOA