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Holiday Online Safety      
 
NetSafe Operations Manager - Lee Chisholm
 
Holiday safety for children no longer just means addressing sunsense and watersafety, but also making sure their online safety skills are ready to go as they connect, download, upload and surf through their way through the holidays. NetSafe Operations Manager Lee Chisholm (pictured) looks at keeping children safe online over the holiday season.
 
School holidays can mean your children are on the computer, their mobile phone or gaming console even more than usual, chatting to friends, hanging out on Bebo, watching and posting video clips on YouTube, or playing games. These days a child with technology is most likely a child connected to the rest of the world.
 
While many parents are aware that the online environment can bring strangers into their children’s chat environments, it’s important to understand other online risks as well. Preliminary results from NetSafe research in 2007 suggests that as many as 20-40% of young people experience cyberbullying. Additionally, malicious software is often found in free downloads of music, movies, games and screensavers which target young people. Restricted material like pornography and violence is freely available online, along with other material which parents might deem inappropriate, anti-social or dangerous.
 
It can be tempting to try to shut out all possibility of risk and either remove the technology or use filtering and monitoring programs to block unwanted sites and keep a check on what children are doing. Realistically though, all a child has to do is use a proxy server (like hidemyass.com) or go next door to a friend’s house, library or internet café to get around most technological restrictions.
 
So how can parents encourage children to take advantage of all the benefits global connectedness brings while minimizing and managing the possible problems which can surface especially when young people have more time than usual on their hands?
 
Tips for parents to keep their children safer online:
• Get involved in your child’s online life (NetSafe recommends that children under 8 have an adult with them online)

• Check in with them about online and offline friends

• Find out how they and their friends help each other deal with online problems

• Ask them to show you what they like doing online (don’t be afraid if you don’t know how to use the technology as well as they do –they may enjoy being the ones to show you!)

• Try to keep calm if there are online issues (kids often stop talking to adults if they think parents will react badly or take away the technology) 

• Find out about online risks, (learn about how to stop cyberbullying/textbullying and harassment, spot online grooming, avoid malware) and discuss how your children are currently managing those risks.

• Visit www.netsafe.org.nz and www.hectorsworld.com for up-to-date and interactive education about keeping young people safe online.
 
By Lee Chisholm
Operations Manager NetSafe
      
         
Out-of-Office Replies
 
While on holiday this summer, be aware of what your out-of-office reply says about you and your business. It can be more security conscious to only talk about your own actions over the holidays, rather than saying that your office will be unattended so as to avoid giving would-be fraudsters and burglars useful information. It can also pay to remember that out-of-office replies can let spammers know your address is live - and you may get more spam as a result. 
      
         
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Using Fictional Characters to Engage Learners in E-learning      
 
 
NetSafe Development Manager - Sean LyonsOver 2007, NetSafe has added e-learning tools to the range of cybersafety training available. NetSafe’s Development Manager Sean Lyons attended the e-Learning conference 'devcon 07' in Salt Lake City earlier this year.  During his time at the conference, Sean participated in a workshop focused entirely on the use of fictional characters to develop learning stories that engage learners and successfully deliver education.
 
One of the greatest hurdles in the development of any online course is ensuring that e-learning programs are engaging. For those involved in designing courses it is becoming clear that an important part of e-learning is the host, meaning a character that guides, instructs, mentors, and entertains the learner. If the course is based in a classroom, the teacher plays that role. They can, in theory, ensure that everyone is ‘on-task’ and participating.  But how can instructional designers transfer this ‘live host’ model to e-learning? The answer according to an increasingly large group of designers is ‘character simulations’.
 
Characters allow learners to form a relationship with the material being taught. They make the learning experience more immersive which stimulates a learner’s social responses, making the knowledge ‘stickier’ because of the trust relationship developed and the ability a character has to socially re-enforce the learning that has taken place.
 
While it is accepted that fictional characters are not the panacea for all e-learning engagement issues, a well designed, relevant host and mentor will definitely enhance the on-line learning experience.