i-SAFE Safe School Education Initiative

i-SAFE fulfills a vital role in the digital age and global information society, by empowering Internet users with the knowledge and awareness needed to capture the most benefit from Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) and the Internet through safe, responsible, ethical and legal use.

As Internet use continues to grow, so will the number of cyber criminals. Crimes vary from theft of credit card information or personal identities to solicitation of sexual acts, stalking, cyber bullying and hacking. The Internet has changed the rules of the game. No longer are criminals constrained by geographical or physical barriers (such as having access to places where children frequent.

Unprotected and unaware usage of the Internet exposes children to risks and facilitates inappropriate behaviors already proliferating across the world dealing with computer security breeches, financial fraud, identity theft, cyber bullying and other personal safety issues such as child predators, child pornography, human traffickers etc. With this in mind, i-SAFE developed (and for the past 7 years has deployed) an extensive e-Safety educational program that has empowered and educated millions of pre-primary to secondary school children and their surrounding communities worldwide.

i-SAFE addresses the broad range of e-Safety issues through a uniquely comprehensive and holistic framework[1] that includes training of educators (i.e., Professional Development Program a.k.a. PDP) both online and in-person (live), extensive community outreach programs for parents, seniors, legal/law enforcement professionals and, most importantly, a world-class age-appropriate e-Safety curriculum that features integrated teaching and learning activities for students in all grades from pre-primary to secondary school. i-SAFE also presides over a statistical databank, the only one of its kind - worldwide, real-time student online attitudes and behaviors. In brief, the e-Safety education and programming provided by i-SAFE consists of the following elements:

1. An extensive age-appropriate e-Safety curriculum for pre-primary to secondary school children covering topics ranging from Cyber Community Citizenship (e.g., appropriate, safe and responsible online behavior), Cyber Bullying, Cyber Security (e.g., viruses, spam, etc.) Personal Safety (e.g., identity protection online), Predator Identification and Intellectual Property (e.g., ethnical and legal use of online information, copyright regulations, concepts of intellectual property ownership and creation, etc.). The curricular resources are accompanied by a diverse set of complementary activity programs and media products such as assembly kits, youth-empowering mentorship and volunteering program manuals, music CDs, DVDs, Web casts and supplemental workbooks on the constructive uses of ICT in everyday life such as job-searching, banking, social networking, website development, etc.
2. An extensive teacher training and professional development resource for classroom instructors based on the e-Safety curriculum, which can be conducted in-person (live) through assemblies, online through the i-LEARN Online program.
3. i-SAFE’s holistic approach to e-Safety also includes many outreach features that are directed towards parents, seniors and legal/law enforcement professionals for which assembly tool-kits, educational materials and other media products have been designed with the purpose of raising awareness and knowledge about e-Safety, media literacy and introductory ICT skills on a community level in a cooperative, comprehensive and interactive way.
4. i-SAFE’s National and International Assessment Center (NAC and IAC) contains the only real-time statistical behavioral databank of its kind which details the online behavior and level of e-Safety awareness/knowledge, media literacy and basic ICT skills of individuals worldwide according to age, gender, level of education, territorial affiliation and many other more precise factors. Data is gathered (through anonymous online surveys) in all areas where i-SAFE is active, gauging the target populations prior (default) knowledge versus that which they possess after participating in the i-SAFE program(s). Comparative assessments help i-SAFE identify the educational needs of various target populations and monitor the effectiveness of its educational program in meeting those needs.

The Internet has drastically changed our world and the way that we interact within it. It fosters both opportunities and perils. Our children are now citizens of two diverse communities: the physical world and the virtual world. In the past, we taught our children rules of citizenship so that they could better interact with people within their physical community; we educated them on how to identify appropriate and inappropriate behavior; we taught them how to respond to danger, how to identify unsafe situations, and how to avoid compromising or harmful situations. The world has changed, and as such, has added another dimension to the lessons that we need to teach, the skills that we need to instill and the educational messages we need to present.

. Since 2002 i-SAFE has established a solid foundation with state departments of education, school districts, law enforcement agencies, community organizations, and student organizations that have led to successive years of expansion in all 50 states.

I-SAFE’s organizational structure to manage large, national and international projects is well documented through their unprecedented reach of serving millions of students and community members over the past several years. I-SAFE’s capacity and capabilities were most recently underscored when the 25 member nations of the European Union (EU) unanimously voted to admit i-SAFE as its first and only non-European associate node.

The geographical components relevant to the implementation of the I-Safe program are deconstructed as follows: United States è single State è school district and community within a State è single school and PTA within a district è single grade level within a school.

[1] See APPENDIX A (within “other attachment) for a structured (outline) presentation of the programmatic features of e-Safety Education and Programming offered by i-SAFE.