Childnet helps parents get web savvy

Internet awareness charity Childnet International has produced an interactive learning resource for parents who want to know more about the internet, so that they can guide their children through it safely.

The resource, which is available on a CD ROM or downloaded over the charity's website, is designed to help parents acclimatise themselves to the internet, so that they have the confidence to help their own children do the same in a safe manner.

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The charity was commissioned by the Department for Children, Schools and Families (called the DfEE at the time) to build the resource in 2006, as part of the educational programme 'Computers for Pupils'.

Childnet CEO Steven Carrick-Davies said: "The purpose of the project was to promote the positive aspect of the internet and provide some balance to other messages out in the public perception."

Childnet conducted research with parents including those on the lower end of the social demographic in Birmingham and Slough to find out the best way of bridging the digital divide and educating parents whose knowledge of the internet was falling behind their own children, without alienating them further from the new medium.

Childnet uncovered some surprising misgivings about the internet among the parents it surveyed. Some were worried that their children might break it by mistake, if they were allowed to go online unsupervised.

Despite any irrational fears Carrick-Davies and his team came across, it became apparent many parents were avoiding learning about the internet for fear of being made to look stupid or being patronised in front of their own children.

He said: "One of the important things we learned was that parents wanted information in a digestible format. The last thing they wanted was more leaflets. We knew that an interactive resource where parents could learn about the internet through a variety of media was the best method."

Many parents who are having the most difficulty with familiarising themselves with the internet do not speak English as a first language. Therefore another key component of the resource is that it should be translated into a number of different languages. Speakers of Arabic, Bengali, British Sign Language, Mandarin, Polish and Urdu can all access the resource in their native languages.

Carrick-Davies also found it was important that the resource be made available free through a trusted source. The best solution was to distribute a CD-ROM through schools. 500,000 copies have been distributed through schools and another 200,000 have been pre-loaded onto PCs sold through the PC World retail chain.

A further 500,000 are due to be taken by schools, with the next version translated into Welsh also. The resource has been rolled out to Malta and the education authorities in Egypt have requested an Egyptian version to be distributed in that country.

At home, not only is the resource helping to bring more people onto the digital superhighway but it has provided a valuable resource for local schools to use to engage the parents of the children in their care as they attempt to become centres for community learning, in line with current government policy.