5/17/2017

Happy Onlife toolkit for safer internet use


Guest contribution by the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission


Happy Onlife is an edutainment (education+entertainment) toolkit conceived by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission promoting a safe and responsible use of internet among children and adults. It is also used to raise awareness on online safety risks for privacy, cyber security and cyberbullying. It is available as paper version (EN, IT) and digital application for mobile and web platforms (EN, FR, IT, NL, ES). Happy Onlife is also mobile and is available for iOS, Android and Windows Smartphones https://web.jrc.ec.europa.eu/happyonlife/index.html. JRC is now inviting parents’ associations to try the toolkit, to promote it and contribute to its further development. The contents of the toolkit are very much in line with EPA’s point of view on internet use, to raise awareness rather than restrict and create anxiety.


This year to celebrate  Safer Internet Day 2017, Happy Onlife resources were released under open source license (EUPL). The release of the source code is an opportunity to share best practices and promote novel teaching methods on data protection and cybersecurity.

The aim is to open this research and its resources to citizens: parents, teachers, students, children … All published and released Happy Onlife material can be freely used and reused.
Test and play the Happy Onlife game and tools. Join the Happy Onlife community!
You can remix, tweak, and build upon Happy Onlife work, as long as you credit the European Commission as author. You can also contribute by 
  • translating the game content in new languages on GitHub
  • creating new questions, topics, updates on popular media tools into the game content on GitHub
  • building new awareness raising activities and/or projects inspired by Happy Onlife booklet
  • proposing new features to the digital game released in GitHub under open-source EUPL licence
  • getting involved in the Happy Onlife JRC pilot with Italian, Belgian, Portuguese and Romanian partners

Have a look at examples of Happy Onlife reuse by Schools, Coderdojo or Minecraft experts from the JRC report.

You can be inspired by other projects and realise your own one!

Let us know what you are up to by sending an e-mail to jrc-happyonlife [at] ec.europa.eu.

Background
The digital life of citizens and young citizens is at the focus of the European Commission attention and action seeking the most appropriate and innovative schemes not only to protect against threats and risk of the web, but also to make the most vulnerable more informed, skilled and capable of coping with cultural and technical changes. Happy Onlife approach is participatory and playful sharing of digital life experiences to open up intergenerational dialogue with active mediation among actors through edutainment tools. Active appropriation, community engagement, mediation to children and reverse mediation of children to adults enhance digital skills and empower children and adults for a safe and responsible use of ICT.


The European Commission also promotes safer internet through the Better Internet for Kids Strategy and financial support to Safer Internet Centres in 27 Member States as well as Iceland and Norway, coordinated by the joint INSAFE/INHOPE network, with the financial support of the European Commission under Connecting Europe Facility. Among other initiatives, the INSAFE/INHOPE network organizes the Safer Internet Day that gives an opportunity for children, young students, teachers, parents, industry, policy makers and other stakeholders to collaborate and reflect on emerging risks the youngest users.

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