Parents encouraged to earn open badges on Safer Internet Day 2014 #SID2014
Parents are being urged to join in the annual celebration of e-safety, as Safer Internet Day 2014 (SID2014) arrives on Tuesday February 11.
SID2014 is organised by Insafe and UKSIC to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology, and this year the focus is on parents as well as teachers and young people around the world.
Anyone engaging with this years campaign, which is headlined Lets create a better internet together can earn Open Badges, which are a unique form of online accreditation designed to recognise a range of skills and activities.
A special series of Open Badges have been created for Safer Internet Day 2014 by Safe — the e-safety programme run by Leeds-based company DigitalMe and funded by Nominet Trust.
A young person or adult can earn an SID2014 digital Open Badge by using Makewaves, the safe social learning platform, to create stories, blogs, videos and pictures about making the internet safer.
DigitalMe hopes the Open Badges for SID2014 will encourage parents to take part in Safer Internet Day with their child. Parents can sign up to the Safe Network on Makewaves as a guest for free.
Tim Riches, CEO of DigitalMe, said: Open Badges are a highly effective tool to track, engage and reward the knowledge and skills of people of all ages. They are a great way of engaging young people to learn new skills and now we hope we can encourage parents and teachers to also get involved in the Open Badge Movement. Safer Internet Day 2014 is just one way they can join in and we hope to engage with them through other initiatives throughout the year.
The Open Badge movement is being propelled by Mozilla, creators of Firefox, and aims to create a worldwide standard of attainment that anyone can take part in.
Find out how to take part in Safer Internet Day and earn an Open Badge here.
DigitalMe is running Badge the UK to support schools, charities and employers to create and issue badges like the Safer Internet Day badge and create a new skills currency for young people. Contact DigitalMe to find out more.
