NEWS / PROJECTS: Children as expert users: involving children in awareness raising actions (GERMANY)

Children as expert users: involving children in awareness raising actions

Klick-Tipps, a project promoting good websites for children in Germany, has set up a new children’s editorial group supporting the selection of sites that can be recommended to kids.

One very good example of involving children in awareness raising is the new children’s editorial group from the Klick-Tipps project that was started on Safer Internet Day 2008. Klick-Tipps is a project of the Foundation Media Literacy Forum Southwest (MKFS), which is run, along with other partners, by:

• the Media Authority of Rhineland-Palatinate (project coordinator of the German awareness node klicksafe),
• one of Germany’s internet hotlines, and
• jugendschutz.net, an institution founded by the youth ministries of all German states. Its aim is to observe and examine internet material that is found to be offensive, harmful or illegal.

Both of the latter are close partners of klicksafe in its national network.

Klick-Tipps provides children, parents and teachers every week with links to good and interesting websites for children. The aim is to promote good children’s websites and to give young users a chance to find out about alternatives to surfing on sites designed for adults.

With this new editorial group, Klick-Tipps has taken another step towards meeting children’s needs. 35 child editors discuss websites for the klicktipps selection of recommended sites with their adult counterparts. Once a week, they also test a website for subsequent judging by young visitors to the highly frequented portal klicktipps.net as well as two partner sites kindernetz.de and kindersache.de.

What makes the project successful and the website so popular is the fact that children have a say and the possibility of actively taking part. The theoretical concept of child orientation is thus given a practical expression. It is not only grown-ups that decide what is valuable and interesting for children, but the kids themselves choose what they like and then recommend their choice to others.

The Klick-Tipps children’s editorial group thus helps its young members to learn about internet safety and acquire the skills involved in distinguishing good, interesting content on websites that are not designed for children. Moreover, it means what is recommended for children converges with what they really need. In this way it is more likely that kids will use these sites rather than surf the world wide web without guidance, running the risk of stumbling into confusing and harmful content.

Source