SimSafety –Flight simulator for Internet safety

The content of this page is displayed in standardized format to serve as quick reference; and facilitate its use during preparation of new applications. Do not change the content of this page without consulting with the project coordinator. For encyclopedic details about the project, please refer to its main page. Simsafety –Flight simulator for Internet safety The scope of this project is to address pupils, their parents and their teachers, inform them about the issue at stake, train them to enable their active involvement in the gaming approach and engage them in challenging game playing. It is the scope of the evaluation of the project to investigate the “impact” on players from their involvement to the project, the level of Internet safety awareness achieved in relation to the different scenarios and settings for playing the game, the rate of success in overcoming the digital gap between parents and children / teachers and pupils, Internet literacy achieved by teachers and parents as well as the effect on the parent-child relationship.

Formal Project Description Contract Title SimSafety –Flight simulator for Internet safety Project Acronym SimSafety Lead Partner Hellenic Open University Agreement n° 143689-2008-LLP-GR-KA3-KA3MP2008 Partners Cyprus Neuroscience and Technology Institute Cost of Action €647,615.00 Grant €485,711.00 Dates 01/01/2009 - 31/12/2010 Website http://www.simsafety.eu About Project SimSafety

Overall objective(s) To develop skills, concepts and knowledge that will facilitate the targeted groups to develop a new mentality, that of using the Internet safely. To achieve this aim, it is the consortium’s belief that targeted groups should be involved in the actual application of all the information they receive through various sources (e.g. awareness nodes), in ways that will not be perceived as another school “lesson” or simply as “theoretical information”. Game playing is a well known method for its learning benefits. It is the scope of this project to confront the issue of developing a “culture” in using the Internet Safely through a Role-Playing Game (RPG) approach.

Specific objective(s) addressing target groups which have not attracted the focus of exhaustive research so far creating a gaming environment which will expose its users to potential risks but “safely” - the conceptual game model is innovative as compared to existing games in this area which are either “quiz-like” or do not entail interaction between game players and/or do not facilitate learning through experience customising the platform to create game scenarios, addressing dynamic online user groups and exposing them to contextualised game settings, actions and events. The foreseen gaming experience will reveal risk but at the same time will not harm the sensitive, inner world of young children developing challenging game rules (e.g. scoring, game awards) that will ensure re-playability and scalability of game levels as far as complexity and difficulty is concerned training potential users towards enabling their involvement in such an approach (e.g. by improving their Internet literacy) reinforcing the role of the “Chaperon” during child participation in Internet activities (i.e. parents “escort” their children and teachers escort their pupils during Internet activities) eliminating the “digital distance” between different generations (i.e. parents/children, pupils/teachers) supporting and facilitating the communication between targeted groups from different countries and enabling their co-participation in some of the games setting specific research questions at the cutting edge of research in this area, as a main objective of the project final validation/evaluation report.