Awareness raising session for Parents and Carers 2013 Growing up online [Growing up online is a short presentation that aims to give an overview of some of the technologies children and young people are using. This is just the start, so please encourage your parents and carers to go home, talk to their child about the sites they enjoy using. Suggested script: As your child grows and becomes more independent, it is only natural that they take this independence online. In our teenage years we explore, try new things and sometimes push boundaries and take risks, this is an essential part of growing up. With all of the potential that the online world and new technology offers, young people now have access to huge opportunities. They use technology to express themselves, explore, and be creative; it has changed the way they communicate. The internet has changed all of our lives, and your child has grown up during this change. Many of the things that confuse, baffle or even scare us, are part of the everyday for them. For many of us, this can all be a bit too much. Whether you’re a technophobe or a technophile, it’s still likely that you’ll be playing catch-up with the way your child is using the internet. You might wonder whether what they are doing is safe, and you might also be thinking how can I be as good a parent online as I am offline?

What brings you here today? What sites are your children using? Discuss with the audience there reasons for attending the session and start to talk about the types of technologies and sites they know there children are using.

Your child online… [Create and play clip] [Trainer note] If you have the equipment available, this is your opportunity to host short filmed or audio clips of the children and young people you work with, talking about the sites and technology they use. What better way to hear about the technologies and sites children are using, than from the children themselves.

Learning Online? Computer skills Confidence Research Creativity Communication skills Money management Learning Online? Computer skills Commitment Confidence It is important to illustrate to your audience the positive aspects of being online. Ask if they believe their child is developing any new skills whilst spending time online? If so, what are they? Follow up this discussion by reading the suggestions from the slide. Possible answers below. Answers: Communication skills – communicating is one of the prime reasons for children going online. They are talking to others, sharing their lives, building connections and friendships. Children have the opportunity to build and maintain connections and communication with a far wider group of people than has been possible in the past. Computer skills – children are engrossed in technology at a very young age. They see older siblings or family members using computers and Iphones and quickly copy them. How many of your children before the age of 5 knew how to operate your phone or laptop? These skills are then developed and enhanced over time. As technology plays an increasingly important part in all of our lives so does the importance of being able to use it effectively. Creativity – Through building online spaces and avatars (online characters), online games encourage you to be creative. By using their creativity in this environment children are learning new skills, exploring their imagination and opening their minds to new opportunities. Research – Children research online. They turn to search engines and other online tools to find out about an interest or piece of history. They are learning how to find and understand complex information from a range of sources and apply this knowledge. Being able to navigate the internet in this way is going to be an increasingly important skill, both in daily life and at work. Confidence – The internet gives you the ability to be anybody you want to be and try new things. In the real world a child may struggle to build friendships, but online they can be a ‘popular’ king of an online universe (literally!). Money management – Who here has bought their child online currency, or an online game membership for their child? Children build accounts online and use the currency gained or bought to buy key pieces of online merchandise, such as pets or furniture. Gaming companies suggest that by doing so, they are learning money management. A key lesson is that you can’t buy everything you want and you must work for it. What do you think? Can anybody think of anything I have missed? Research Creativity

Growing up online…. Can you name the sites your children uses for: From socialising to searching, online children are up to a range of activities. Read the possible suggestions on the slide. More information on each topic can be found at – www.thinkuknow.co.uk/parents It is important that the audience has an overview of all the elements/ functions that make up websites and technologies children use. These functions don’t often stand in isolation. A number of them are usually merged together into one online experience and service. E.g Facebook – has all 6 from this year (from 2013).

Websites and Technologies... Social networking Facebook/ Youtube / Twitter /Instagram Instant messaging Skype/ BBM/ Whatsapp Blogs and chat sites Tumblr/ Ask FM / Spillit Gaming Consoles / free and paid Mobile technology Applications Inform the audience that you will be taking them through some of the well known and popular sites children and young people use. [as a trainer it is advised that you visit these sites prior to your session to learn more] For each title on the slide (Social networking, gaming etc…) ask the audience if they could name any sites which would fall under that category. Read through options on the slide.

With over 800 million users and over half a million comments posted on Facebook every single minute, Facebook is still leading the way in social networking. [Trainers notes: many teenagers state that they are now moving away from FB, as interest has spread to other sites such as Twitter. However accounts are still used, checked and not deleted. So it is still very important to be talking to parents and carers about sites such as these] Facebook change their functions often, so to keep up you need to be a member and use the service. The highlighted box’s are some of the main functions you need to be aware of, which relate to children and young people sharing information, which is often very personal.

These are some screen grabs from three more highly popular social networking sites. Twitter, Youtube and Instagram. All these websites require users to be over 13 to have an account Twitter With an estimated 72 million active twitter accounts (as of December 2012), Twitter has found widespread appeal due to the ability to ‘Follow’ and share information, news and gossip with anyone else on Twitter – from friends and family to celebrities. Twitter is proving to be increasingly popular with young people, and whilst users can make their posts private (i.e. only visible to people they have accepted as followers) users may feel encouraged to keep their posts open to all Twitter users. YouTube YouTube allows users to create their own channel for uploading videos. YouTube channels can be open to the public or restricted to specific users or groups. Users can subscribe to other people’s channels to receive updates about new content and as a user you can decide whether people can comment on, ‘thumbs up’ or ‘thumbs down’ their videos. Over 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month Over 4 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute Instagram Instagram users can share their photos with other people on Instagram, comment, like, search for and follow specific people and search for hashtags for specific types of photos people have posted. A new Photo Map feature allows geo-tagging of photos – CEOP advise that this feature should be switched of for young people. Users can report inappropriate photos to Instagram. 90 million Monthly Active Users 40 million Photos Per Day 8500 Likes Per Second 1000 Comments Per Second Once again children and young people need to think carefully about what they share and who they share it with.

Private messaging Here are some examples of networks and apps that allow users to send private instant messages. All of which are free to other users within the service. BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) is an instant messaging service that is free to all BlackBerry users. Users have a unique pin that they can share to allow others to chat with them. Users can send text based messages, links, pictures and videos to individuals or to groups of people they have added. WhatsApp is similar to BBM in that it allows users to send messages, audio files, photos, videos and a current location to people on their contact list. Contacts are added automatically based on the phone numbers stored in a mobile device. Contacts can also create group chats that involve other WhatsApp users outside of their own list of contacts. Skype is similar to both WhatsApp and BBM with the addition feature of allowing webcam conversations between users. Children and young people are more likely to take risks and share private information such as photos in a private space. Inform the audience that private messaging needs to only happen with people they know and trust in the real world. If this is not possible the chat needs to remain public, or they limit what they share.

Blogging and chat sites These are some examples of popular blogging and chat websites. Some of these sites allow you to post anonymously which can cause cyberbullying issues. On Tumblr, users can create their own public or private blog where they can post information, updates and content. Users can follow, like and comment on specific blog posts and can also reblog and repost information from another blog onto their own. Users can change the layout and appearance of their blog allowing individuality between different blog pages. Ask.fm is a question and answer based website where users can create an account and receive questions from other members. The questions can be posted anonymously, and Ask.fm accounts can also be linked to Facebook accounts via an app.

Gaming Ask the audience if they can tell you the names of the gaming sites their child uses? As you will know, gaming is very different to how it used to be. Put Pacman and Tetris to the back of your mind and think MMORPG – or ‘Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game’, which in short means that a site can have thousands of users and the game never ends. Many gaming sites allow you to play and communicate against other users all over the world. One of the most popular ways for children to kill time is on their games consoles. Put your hands up if you have a console in your home? Keep your hand up if it links to the internet? The majority of these do, which means your child can link to other users, talk and play against them.

Mobile Technology Mobiles. How did we ever live without them? They’re a great way to keep in touch with friends and family and, if you’ve got a smartphone, check in on your Facebook when you are out and about. There are apps for just about anything and the possibilities for entertainment are endless. Ask the audience to think of mobiles as mini computers, this way they are on the path to understanding that safety measures that need to be put place.  

Functions Text Chat Location Online Images Ask the parents and carers to think what their child uses a mobile phone for? [Wait for answers and click through boxes on the screen] Talking/chatting Texting Going online Taking photos Sharing their location The majority of these phones are fitted with GPS, which is fantastic when you are lost and need Google Maps assistance as it can pin point you on a map and tell you exactly where you are and how to get to your destination. However, this function is now being used on sites such as Facebook and Foursquare. You can now tell people your exact location by ‘checking in’. As an extra – play facebook places clip from youtube –www.youtube.com/watch?v=dbiH0DxmPc8] So if you “check in” this is shared on your social network profile and all of your ‘friends’ can see where you are. Let’s remember not everyone is who they say they are online. People can tag you in places, which you may not want to share with everyone you know. You can protect yourself and your child by changing settings in the privacy settings area. It has never been more important for children to know who they are taking to and the information they are sharing. Online Images

Mobile Apps Do you know your child’s favourite apps? Does your child use your phone, are you apps age appropriate? Ask your audience the following: Do you know your child’s favourite apps? Does your child use your phone, are your apps age appropriate? There truly is an app for everything. From online banking, to finding out where your bus is, apps have become overwhelmingly popular with adults and children of all ages. They are there to make our lives a little easier on the go, but also for entertainment. Many pre school children's first encounter with the online world is through their parent’s or family member’s phone or tablet. Ask the parents and carers to talk with their children about the apps they have downloaded, are they age appropriate, is there a cost, do they link to other services and if so, what information are they sharing on them?