Early this morning the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Ms. Viviane Reding, launched this years Safer Internet Day.  At 1 a.m. this morning Ms. Reding launched the Blogathon which will be the international highlight for the day.  A worldwide blogathon is once again the international highlight of the day.  The Blog was launched in Brussels in the early hours of this morning, and immediately moved onto New Zealand to start a westward journey across the world through Australia, Asia, the Middle East and Europe then over to South America, Canada and the USA. This year’s blog features more than a hundred projects realized by schools on the topics Netiquette, ePrivacy and the Power of Images.
 

 The 2007 edition debates the theme “Crossing Borders” and examines more closely user rights and responsibilities on the internet. Commissioner Reding underlines the importance of this: “Starting as an initiative in 2004, Safer Internet Day has become a major annual event crowning the awareness activities of Insafe, the European safer internet network. The growing network of nodes from Europe and beyond has a mission to promote media literacy and the safe, ethical and efficient use of the internet and mobile phones.”
 Children in over 40 countries around the world are taking part in the global Blogathon including organizations and schools in Ireland.  BH Consulting for example will be taking part.   The Irish contribution will go live at 1pm.
 

All are invited to join in the discussion on Safer Internet Day by logging on to the Blogathon at http://blog.eun.org/SID2007
 

For this year’s event schools in Ireland have been working with partner schools in Portugal, Estonia, and Denmark as part of a competition that combines the educational use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) with raising awareness of the risks of using the internet and mobile phones.
 

De La Salle College, Dundalk, Scoil na mBuachaillí, Clonakilty, and Bayside Junior School, Sutton are amongst those who will post their projects on the Safer Internet Blogathon as part of the competition.
 

6th year students from De La Salle College, Dundalk used internet telephone services to collaborate with their counterparts in Denmark. In particular they looked at social networking sites and online form filling. They wanted to see not just what the websites wanted to know about them, but also how private their information remained. The schools then created two separate presentations. They had a discussion using Skype where we agreed how to best combine these into one “Safety Online” presentation. The final product of their work is an internet safety presentation that they plan to use to inform younger students in their school on how to stay safe online.
Click on this link to see the presentation: http://www.webwise.ie/GenPDF.aspx?id=1711
 

Fifth class pupils from Scoil na mBuachaillí, Clonakilty, Co. Cork, twinned with Ceip Maria Zambrano, Sevilla, Spain. The pupils are 11 and 12 years of age. The topic they choose was The Power of Images. The schools communicated over the web and through discussion and group work they compiled a list of safety rules which they feel are important when using the internet and sending images online. Scoil na mBuachaillí then produced a film titled “Safe Images @ SNB.com”. The children in Spain viewed the film and sent a written response to the boys in Clonakilty. Both the film and the written response are posted on this blogathon.
Click on this link to see the presentation: mms://media.scoilnet.ie/watchyourspace/Clonakiltysaferinternetday.wmv
 

The pupils of Bayside Junior School, Sutton, Dublin 13 have been actively collaborating with pupils in Estonia using ICT for some time. To celebrate this year’s Safer Internet Day they have produced an online blog called The Little Computer Tamer’s ABC e-privacy and an online magazine.
Click on this link to see their work:
http://computer_tamer.blog.com/
http://www2.edu.fi/magazinefactory/magazines/1844_746/