St. Kabir School, Sector 26, Chandigarh organized an Interactive Session on " Current
Trends in Cyber Crime & Practicing Cyber Safety : Making the Internet safe for
children & families " for students of their school. The event was organized
for bringing up awareness for practicing cyber safety measures at school and at
home. It highlighted the vulnerability of children and the importance of Parental
Supervision while children surf the Internet. It was organized in association with
Cyber Security Research Centre (CSRC), Punjab Engineering College, Chandigarh. Dr.
Sanjeev Sofat, Prof. & Head, CSE, Punjab Engineering College and Mrs. Divya
Bansal, Associate Coordinator CSRC, gave a presentation which was an eye opener
on the hazards of Chatting and Blogging and also emphasizing on looking at this
issue of Cyber safety in a balanced way making sure we don’t forget the real benefits.
In their presentation they said that “Internet is a wonderful resource which can
help children discover, connect and create their own work and is clearly a global
medium to learn and explore, it puts the whole world in children’s hands wherein
they can access things which parents might not like them accessing. Because of new
Internet applications such as Chat, IM, peer-to-peer networks etc, it is increasingly
important that children understand the online safety issues and know how to respond
to the potential dangers whatever application they are using on the Internet. More
than 400 students and their teachers attended the session. The presentation also
emphasized the role of schools and parents for supervising Internet Access done
by the children to make the best use of technology. Before organizing the session,
they conducted a survey in the school for classes VIth to Xth. The survey was designed
by CSRC to understand the students’ perceptions about Internet risks and hazards.
The survey conducted also elucidated the Internet usage patterns of school children.
The survey inferred some very significant results portraying that about nearly 84%
of children have Internet at their homes, nearly 50% of students post photos or
videos of themselves online, half or more teens post information online about the
city where they live (45%) and the name of their school (30%), nearly one in
10
teens (8%) have posted their cell phone number, nearly 60% of parents or guardians
do not talk to their children about Internet safety. The survey was administered
on nearly 600 students of the school and was kept anonymous. The results and inferences
drawn from the survey was also shared with the students, teachers and authorities.
Ms Divya during her presentation also stressed on tips that students must follow
to browse safely on Internet and also stressed on supervised Internet access. School
children were advised to share their browsing habits openly with their parents and
also advised to seek permissions from their parents. The session was followed by
an interactive session where students had asked numerous questions about safer ways
to Internet access. All the queries arising in students’ minds were addressed conveying
them a message of not to get allured by offers of winning lottery and gifts and
not to visit such websites which advertise such offers. In the end Dr. Sanjeev Sofat,
Coordinator CSRC and Prof. & Head of CSE at PEC addressed the audience on how
to use the Internet as a tool for enhancing your knowledge rather than a device
to spend endless hours wasting time chatting and blogging. The teachers and children
were extremely happy with the information provided and said it would equip them
better to deal with the challenges of the new age technologies. The Principal hoped
to organize more such sessions in future and also a session for parents so that
our students and parents are better prepared to take the onslaught of the scourge
of the modern time-Cyber Crime & security from it.
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