Government plans to teach five year olds internet security
This put me in mind of previous attempts by the authorities to educate children about various dangers facing them in everyday life.
Mostly it's been done through information films - remember the fishing beware of overhead power lines one?
Road safety has been a frequent choice - the Green Cross code man, Kevin Keegan, and, of course the daddy of them all - Tufty!
Yes, the road safety squirrel! Remember him? Here's a rather disconcerting pic below to refresh your memories:
Much beloved of 'observational' stand up comedians (The gag goes: Road safety - why use a squirrel? It's the animal most often seen splattered on the tarmac, with tyre tracks across its back), Tufty tried to bring the message home to youngsters via the medium of soft toys (although the picture above is more terrifying than endearing I would contend).
The government's new internet safety plan 'Click Clever, Click Safe' is going to be part of the national curriculum and taught in schools.
But clearly, as Tufty (interesting factoid - surname Fluffytale) shows, to be successful (at it's height there were two million Tufty club members, including me) you've got to somehow appeal to your target audience.
I remember playing a snakes and ladders-style Tufty boardgame - land on a square which says you remembered to look left and right, advance three, run into the road after a ball, go back to the start.
Perhaps we need a fluffy protagonist for the new initiative. Presumably with a silly modern sounding name like iTuft or Tuftpod.
I suspect the stumbling block would be depicting his adversaries - it's hard to imagine how iPaedo or PeadoPod could be visualised.
Ok - bad idea!
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Ben Hurst
I see squirrel's gang are back Ben, must bring back some fond old memories....
Squirrel never went away - still alive and kicking in Treehouse, offering top prizes to his fans!
Addressing Internet issues directly with children is an excellent initiative so that they can understand, in the form of a game, the perils in the Internet jungle.
Though the campaign is a great initiative it is not enough if children are not also backed up by the protection of their parents.
Parents should consider the campaign as additional support to the education they provide on how to safely use the Internet and not as a replacement.
Additionally we also need to consider that technology, represented by parental control softwares,could be of help to automate and modulate the daily operations which can be allowed or denied within a computer connected to Internet.
Rossano Ferraris, CA ISBU Research Team â Internet Security Intelligence
Rossano makes an important point about the need for parents to take the online security of the children seriously - but I'm more interested in Ben's exploits with squirrel and the gang. care to share?
Yes I was rather taken aback by that serious comment from Rossano. As for Squirrel - well let's just leave it in the past.
As usual, the government misses the target by a country mile - totally inappropriate material for children as young as 5.