Google has launched an online safety course in Arabic for teachers and parents on the safer internet day
By taking the course, teachers will learn how to integrate online safety learning and activities into their classroom curriculum.
Google also published localised video tutorials on YouTube that will offer children online safety tips such as how to protect their devices, how to strengthen their sign-ins and how to avoid scams.
According to a 2017 YouGov poll that surveyed 1000 millennials in the UAE, 56 per cent of respondents said that their parents or school teachers never spoke to them about the importance of strong passwords and online safety and 68 per cent said that they are worried about their online accounts being hacked.
This is the reason why Google launched the digital citizenship course, which is found on the Google for Education website, focusing on four areas:
Safety on the go
This reflects the importance of strong passwords, how locking the mobile device helps protect personal information, how to avoid potentially harmful downloads, understanding the difference between private and public WiFi networks and how to use the latter safely.
Safe browsing
The area focuses on how to distinguish between legitimate and dubious sources of information and how to incorporate best practices to critically evaluate online sources of information.
Safety from phishing and scams
This aims to provide knowledge about how to recognise potential scams that happen on the web and through email, how to avoid them, what encryption is and how to check if a web page is encrypted.
Online reputation management
This focuses on understanding the privacy, how to help students identify and report inappropriate behaviour and help them think about how to conduct themselves online.
Commenting about the launch of the online course, Joyce Baz, head of communications at Google in MENA, said, “As people do more online everyday, they need to be able to connect and explore the web with confidence and trust to get the most out of it. We want to build a safer web for everyone so that it remains a positive, safe place that inspires everyone to do and discover more. We take online safety and the safety of the internet seriously with our products, tools, shared resources, as well as industry partnerships.”
