The workshop, presided over by Mr. Jitin Chawla, eminent educationalist and career counsellor had the following experts for a hearty exchange on the subject; Ms. Anita Setia, Head of ( south divisionk) of the Directorate of Education, Mr. Rohit Sinha, HR Head of Larsen & Toubro and Mr. Parekh Shah, RTE Project Coordinator/Counsellor.
The workshop focused on the following topics :
All the speakers spoke at length on how children are exposed to a lot of content through the internet nowadays. It therefore becomes imperative to monitor their online activity and in this regard schools should take a proactive step. They suggested that teachers can do the following in this regard.
Understand children's online habits,
Speak at length to the children on how and to what extent the internet can harm them
How to utilize online resources.
Keep a check on mobile phones in the classroom
Classes teaching in an online environment should address internet safety in the first week.
Can use a trio of internet safety games from the website WebWiseKids
Mr. Rohit Sinha used the age old story of The Sun God and the Wind God where they argue about who is greater. He explained, that unlike the man who was forced to take his coat off by the Sun God, no amount of pressure will work on children. They will have to be oriented with dignity and compassion.
Mr. Parekh Shah gave an example of how a 17 year old girl had written widowed as her facebook status as she had broken up with her boyfriend! He stated that most teens wanted to capture and upload every moment of their lives online. Due to this they sometimes become victims of cyber stalking or cyber bullying. He further highlighted this point by reminding that on January 3, 2013, a 17-year-old girl from a south Delhi public school alleged that she was sexually assaulted by 2 MNC employees, whom she had befriended on a social networking website. Since he is working closely with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), the speaker told the audience that children should be told about the cyber cell in India which is situated in the Delhi Polices Economic Offences' wing on Mandir Marg. He also stated that if the Delhi Police were unable to take any action, the victim could come to them and NCPCR could take Suo Moto Cognizance in any case.
Mr. Jitin Chawla also gave guidelines on how parents could be more proactive, set boundaries and participate with their children in online activities, to nurture the childs confidence in himself/herself. He stated that parents should watch out for signs like their wards keeping awake at odd hours in the night or receiving unaccounted cash/gifts; these can reveal that he/she is speaking to a stranger online. He also highlighted through videos that children do not know who is sitting at the other end of the computer. It could be a 40 year old man posing as a 19 year old teen. Mr. Chawla also gave names of popular parental control softwares like
Qustodio
PGsurfer (Microsoft certified)
OnlineFamily.Norton
Net nanny 6.5 (Paid software)
He reiterated that schools/parents should tell children to remember the following while working on the internet:
While answering a query, Mr. Chawla told the audience that juveniles could also be punished for cyber crime. Our Indian cyber law had Section 66 whereby school students could be booked for malicious online activities. He also said that schools should propagate the benefits of internet like youtubeschools.com which has a lot of videos on several academic topics.
The workshop also had speakers from the International Institute of Hotel Management (IIHM), SP Jain School of Management, Gurgaon and Footwear Design and Development Institute (FDDI) who highlighted the various undergraduate and postgraduate courses that their institutes were offering.
Compiled by Ms. Meenu Kumar and Ms. Sandhya Batheja .
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