Video Resources for Online Safety

Podcast version

Translating the stranger danger message from the face to face world to the online world is a difficult task. Young children can easily be taken in by a predator pretending to be a teen or fall victim to scams or hate sites. Even net savvy teens who intellectually understand that a stranger is anyone they don't know face to face, may engage in conversation with a stranger claiming to be a 14 year old boy or girl. The longer that conversation continues the greater the danger.

In an effort to get the message across to teens, tweens, and adults, WiredSafety.org has just posted a series of videos and public service announcements designed to deliver the message and get conversations started between teens and adults.

The video resource page located at http://www.wiredsafety.org/wiredlearning/videos features the 4Ps video and the You Never Know series of public service announcements.

The 4Ps is a video by Parry Aftab that covers the dangers of Predators, Pornography, Privacy and Piracy.

The You Never Know series created by the Child Safety Research Institute, a Canadian partner of WiredSafety, is a series of Flash animations that portay a teenage boy or girl online with who they think is another 14 year-old. Each animation starts the same way, but has a different ending. It not only gets the stranger danger message across, it shows teens that predators may not be the only ones on the other end of the keyboard and can open conversations about cyberbullying and monitoring of communications.

These and other videos on the page are available for use by parents and teachers as stand alone activities or in conjunction with the Cyber Safety through Information Literacy learning activities at http://www.wiredsafety.org/wiredlearning

One way parents can use these videos is to go online a download one that you want your child to see. Put it on the desktop of the computer they use and allow them to find it on their own. Once they open it, their curiousity will probably force them to ask you where it came from. That is the perfect opportunity to begin the Internet safety conversation.

Take some time and go explore the video resources. They are there for downloading. They're free, there's no registration required and no hoops to jump through.

Stay tuned for more ideas on how you can use the learning activities and videos to help keep kids safe online.

This is Art Wolinsky for WiredSafety reminding you become cyber safe and information literate.