The use of the Internet and other online technologies continue to increase. It opens up many opportunities for young people to boost their learning and creativity. However online activities poses risks and presents challenges for teachers. This part of the module deals with safety online and specifically protecting personal data and privacy.
Activity: Review the unit learning outcomes
EXPLORER LEVEL
The online world gives us unlimited access to the information, but it might also cause the leakage of personal data. In order to preserve privacy basic rules should be respected. These rules are based on media literacy.
Activity: Read about media literacy, EU regulations and safety online
To stay anonymous online you can use Tor browser and VPN so that your data is not attributed to your name. This assures data safety and makes sure that your information is protected. This is extremely important while working with children as their data is the most tangible.
Activity: Find out more about VPN:
A good free VPN is considered to be a Hotspot Shield. Find out more
Activity: Try to connect to VPN to anonymise your search activity. Use an incognito browser mode and surf to some sites, check afterwards if no information is remaining, for instance in the browsing history
EXPERT LEVEL
In order to protect yourself, check every link you are clicking on. This can be done using the following online services that provide detailed information about the internet source.
- https://checkshorturl.com/
– expanding any shortened URLs - https://scanurl.net/
– scan the link - https://www.virustotal.com/gui/home/upload
– checks links and files for potential threats - https://whois.domaintools.com/
– checks the origin of the website
Frequently, suspicious links highlight information, or even pictures that are interesting to follow because they are designed to trigger your attention. On the off chance that you didn’t expect getting connections or are scrutinising the wellspring or origin of the message, abstain from opening or clicking on the picture.
Some browsers programs are set up to give you a preview of these connections so you can see what it would resemble by setting your cursor over the link without actually following the connection.
While working with young people, encourage them to think twice before following links as this can lead to the unauthorised transmission of data, known as data leakage. Such an approach will also teach them how to be responsible on the Internet and also help explain the core principles of the Internet : such as transparency and visibility.
Children are the most vulnerable users of the Internet and it is our role to educate them.
Activity: Check recent links that you clicked on and get detailed information about them using the mentioned tools