Safer Internet Day: a reminder to everyone

Make The Change with Mr S Iswaran, Minister for Communications and Information & Minister-in-charge of Trade Relations

Hacked social media accounts. Dangerous trending challenges. Online scams. Fake news. Cyberbullying.

These are some of the most serious dangers that come with our overuse of technology. Unless we are directly affected by them, we don’t realise how awful they can be.

Today marks Safer Internet Day (SID), which started out as a European Union SafeBorders project back in 2004. Each year since then, SID aims to address a current issue that affects or influences users online, especially youths.

This year, it focuses on the theme of “An Internet We Can Trust”, which has become an obvious issue and will get increasingly worse as we spend more of our time on the internet.

So as we carry on, we need to practice healthier habits.

It’s our initiative at Make The Change to bring awareness to digital and media literacy with our Digital Arts For All workshop. We actively inform and educate students by teaching them to Be Safe, Be Smart and Be Kind when they’re online. We want our students to cultivate a better understanding on how information online can shape and impact an individual.

After a DAFA workshop, they will be empowered with critical thinking skills and take away the 3 main pillars in discerning how they receive as well as create content online, which are the essence of media literacy. But they don’t only focus on theory. We have plenty of practical activities using iPads and Apple Pencils that will keep students engaged as they create their own digital art picture or GIF advocating a message on media literacy.

That is precisely why our DFG Youth Competition design brief this year is the Better Internet Campaign, which is all about creating a safer and better internet for everyone. We are open for submissions and close on June 15.

Schools that wish to enter will get a complimentary 2-hour Digital Arts and Cyberwellness Workshop for your students.

If you’d like to know more about our DAFA workshops, please contact us!