Currently Social Networks and Internet are more than a tool, they have created a revolution in social connectivity. Children grow now immersed in this Information Society; they therefore embrace it in a fully natural manner, actively participating and taking the best advantage of their possibilities for communicating and socialising. Social networks are virtual meeting places where users interact via Internet. Users themselves provide most of the content, make comments... Social nets often have forums, groups and communities. Information systems and communication over the Internet have extraordinary power. While on-line computer exploration opens a world of possibilities for children, expanding their horizons and exposing them to different cultures and ways of life, they also can be exposed to dangers as they hit the road exploring the information highway. There are a lot of risks that the children daily face up on the Internet, as: • Cyber-Bullying. • Grooming. • Sexting. • Toxic content. . Others. Through this project, consortium will contribute to make available attractive and interesting material for parents related to Internet and Social Networks that allows them to prevent risks related to the use of Internet and social nets and the ways to detect problems arisen to their children. The main aim of this project is to train parents in the use of the ways of communication brought by Information Society and the risks involved, in order to contribute to the prevention of possible risk situations brought by the use of Internet and particularly by Social Networks, which use has grown very quickly during the last years and still keep growing a lot. In order to achieve this aim, the following specific objectives have been allocated to the project: a) Perform a research on the involved countries on the use of Internet by young people, particularly by minors, highlighting the following: 1) Most popular websites used for communicating and sharing content. 2) Main risks arisen from the use of Internet, with particular attention to the use of social nets, and the relation between these risks and the different type of Internet websites or tools. b) Produce a Report with the outcome of the research, per country and for the whole consortium. c) Produce a multimedia training material including information regarding: 1) Multimedia handbook, including the use of Internet for communication. 2) Multimedia game for prevention of the main risks related to the use of Internet for communication. d) Carry out workshops in some of the partners involved in the project, implementing the material produced. e) Promote and improve the use of ICT in adults, in order to adapt them to the Information Society and the media. The main outcomes of the project will be: 1) Multimedia handbook, including the use of Internet for communication. 2) Multimedia game for prevention of the main risks related to the use of Internet for communication. The partners involved in the project will be: - Dirección Xeral de Educación, FP e Innovación Educativa - Asociación No al Acoso Escolar Stop Bullying - DUBLIN CITY UNIVERSITY - European Parents' Association - Colegiul National Pedagogic "Stefan Velovan" - INSTITUTO UNIVERSITARIO DE LISBOA - Virtual Campus Lda One of the main barriers to reduce the risk to children during their use of social networks and other websites is the lack of resources to train parents and teachers to know how to act. It is necessary to teach them how to become be the primary prevention agents. The target groups of the project are as following: Direct target group: - Parents from countries involved in the project, and in all Europe, in order to prevent, detect and solve risks related to the matter of the project. - Teachers who will use it implementing this material - Stakeholders, who will have available material related to the topic of the project. Indirect target group: - Young people, as a final target group, whose parents have used this material, in order to support them on how to use of these resources well. - Internet services companies.
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.