These links help students, parents, and staff become effective digital citizens and help build your knowledge and understanding of digital literacy and citizenship, media literacy and Internet safety. This is a critical skill for everyone in our communities today.
MediaSmarts
MediaSmart is a Canadian non-profit organization that has been pioneering the development of media literacy and digital literacy programs since its incorporation in 1996. It contains one of the world's most comprehensive collections of media literacy, and digital literacy resources. It has resources for teachers and parents on such subjects as Media Violence, Online Hate, Media Stereotyping, Information Privacy. Most of the resources are freely available for download.
Alberta Education has purchased licensing for all school districts, teachers, parents, and students to the paid resources. You should have received a letter from your school with instructions on how to access the paid resources. These resources include interactive tutorials for various grade levels to assist students about using the Internet safely.
Their companion site Be Web Aware has safety tips, activities for parents and children, and articles on various Internet issues such as cyberbullying, excessive internet use, gaming, social networking, etc.
Kids in the Know
Kids in the Know is the Canadian Centre for Child Protection’s national safety education program. The program engages students with activities that build skills that increase their personal safety and reduce their risk of victimization online and in the real world.
ConnectSafely
ConnectSafely is a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating people about technology safety, privacy, and security. They have research-based safety tips, parent guidebooks, advice, news, and commentary on all aspects of technology use.
Safe Kids
Safe Kids is a blog created by Larry Magid, technology journalist and author of the 1994 brochure, “Child Safety on the Information Highway” It has numerous resources including Guides for Parents (different guides depending on the age of the child), a Parent's Guide to Facebook, Child-safe search, etc. It also has links to ConnectSafely.