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| The project addressed Internet safety issues with the aim to achieve an in-depth understanding regarding safety breaches and protective measures and actions, primarily within the family environment. For this purpose, a limited section of the Online Virtual Environment, Second Life, was customized to host study teams who were playing on the Internet and were “exposed” to real risks in a controlled way. Project participants developed skills in recognizing safety pitfalls and dealing with them as well as appreciated Internet Risks in their true dimension. | | The project addressed Internet safety issues with the aim to achieve an in-depth understanding regarding safety breaches and protective measures and actions, primarily within the family environment. For this purpose, a limited section of the Online Virtual Environment, Second Life, was customized to host study teams who were playing on the Internet and were “exposed” to real risks in a controlled way. Project participants developed skills in recognizing safety pitfalls and dealing with them as well as appreciated Internet Risks in their true dimension. |
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| ==Products of the Simsafety project== | | ==InetRisks Implementation== |
| The project partners:
| | * Customization of a place in the virtual environment '''Second Life''' |
| * '''The Project Portal''' has been launched early in the project with the dual aim of supporting project partner work and the online community of teachers, parents and pupils. It also serves as a means for broad dissemination of project products and results and as the “access point” for the game environment. | | * Identification and selection of participants |
| * '''The Game Conceptual Design''' describes an innovative pedagogical approach in confronting a major issue these days, that of equipping current and future Internet users with the appropriate knowledge, skills and concepts in order to be able to take advantage of the outstanding potential of the Internet without running its risks. Communicative Action Theory and Social Theory were used, among others, as a framework to describe the potential of an educational Role-playing Game (RPGs) hosted on a Virtual Online Environment to provide opportunities for players to think critically and analytically about information and situations encountered, develop a clear understanding of potential risks through “trial and error” approaches and creatively apply the resultant new knowledge in real life.
| | * Formation of 10 study teams (composed from 1 parent and 1 child each) |
| * '''The “SimSafety” game''' platform offers secure access to all game participants. They are exposed to potential risks, safely, through a series of predefined scenarios. Critical evaluation of information, experience acquired through observation, exchange of resources and argumentation between game players will be the successful game methodology that will guide players through a scoring process to high level ranking, award winning and thus change of game levels both in terms of complexity and difficulty. The game platform is internationalized (multilingual interface in English, Greek, Portuguese, Suomi, Romanian), and offers the possibility of saving and storing games played in a database, records part of the scoring automatically (whereas part of the scoring will be a result of negotiation among game players), keeps players’ ranking and allots reward-tools upon achieving specific scores, which promotes players to the next levels. | | * Initiation of first phase of activities. |
| * '''The System Manual''' functions in the form of “online help” and guides players through the functionality of the gaming platform. | | * Feedback, questions and exchange of experiences among participants. |
| * '''A list of Game Scenarios''' were developed by the project team taking into account existing research on major potential online risks. Each game scenario serves specific objectives. Game scenarios emphasize child-parent and/or pupil/teacher cooperation introducing and/or reinforcing the role of the “Internet - chaperon” (i.e. a parent who acts as a chaperon to his/her child while involved in Internet activities).
| | *Second phase of activities. |
| *'''A Game Scenarios Manual''' guides players through the aim and scope of each game, scoring possibilities and award winning procedures. | | *Collection of data from participants. |
| *'''The Implementation Reports from each partner country including examples of good practice''' were used for dissemination and evaluation purposes of the project and remained as a legacy to future players now the project has finished.
| | *Qualitative Analysis of data. |
| *'''A number of recorded games''' is available for future research as well as for dissemination and user training purposes. | | *Presentation of the results of the project. |
| *'''The Dissemination material''' consists of a multipurpose Brochure/Poster which is available in English. Inserts to the poster in all partner languages addresses the specific target groups of the project (teachers, parents, pupils).
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| *'''A conference''' was organized towards the end of the project. All people involved in the project were invited to share their experience, ideas and thoughts about this venture. '''Conference proceedings''' are an important legacy of the project. | |
| *'''A Reaction Evaluation report''' evaluates the impact of the project on teachers, pupils, schools, parents and external agencies. | |
| *'''A Final Summative Evaluation report''' considers the totality and legacy of the project, its overall success and failures, the transnational partnership and its final deliverables and dissemination. | |
| *'''A community of teachers, pupils and parents''' who by in vitro experience have gained the know-how and awareness with regard to Internet safety issues and that are also the legacy of the project forming a potential network of game players which will be supported to join other networks and thus continue its involvement in similar initiatives. | |
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| ==Simsafety - The Game== | | ==Simsafety - The Game== |
