This Month November, is all about safety
Feeling safe is essential to having a good quality of life and safety includes experiencing life free from harm, danger, injury or loss. There are many ways we work to create safe environments for ourselves and others and it’s important for us to stay safe not only physically and mentally, but also digitally. Finding methods to ensure safety is a priority for everyone is key to creating equitable and inclusive spaces, both online and in-person.
In Canada, there are measures in place to keep us safe. We have emergency services workers patrolling our cities and laws aimed at our safety. In all of our communities, we have to work together to make safety a priority and this may look different in each space. Picking up your younger sibling up at school or remembering to lock the door behind you both serve the wellbeing of yourself and others, and these types of small tasks allow everyone to feel safe.
Technology has allowed us to establish more safe practices, such as the use of CCTV cameras, security protected online passwords, and home burglary alarm systems. But it has also made us more vulnerable, specifically regarding our internet safety and information security. We mindlessly check off accept all cookies and put our information into the cloud without a second thought. Now and in the coming years, we all have to be aware of our technological footprint and explore the ways we can protect our digital selves.
This month, we’d like to challenge you to pause, reflect and learn about topics, problems, concerns around the topic of safety – as you create your web projects.
How to participate this month:
As you learn about and develop fluency on digital tools and programming languages, we would like for you to explore the topic of safety. We’ll leave what you want to focus on up to you – but thinking about how to protect our online privacy and security– might be a great starting point!
For example, how might we….
- Understand why technology has both propelled our safety but also made us more vulnerable?
- Discover patterns in web safety and where people’s information commonly becomes compromised?
- Understand how safety measures in public spaces might help or hinder our privacy?
- Build more awareness of how our personal information is used online?
We welcome you to be as imaginative as you like – but here are some example project ideas:
- Create a video game that shows the dangers of the internet and why we need strong cyber security
- Create an interactive story about how Canada keeps the population safe
- Build a website that allows people to see the information that different digital distributors have on them
- For educators, build a lesson plan that teaches students how to be safe online and how cyber security can affect everyone
Share your digital projects with us!
Share photos, screenshots or videos of your digital projects you’ve started using the #clcCode4Change hashtag! We want to see what you end up creating. Remember that learning something new is a work-in-progress. We hope you continue to work on the project you’ve started with us – beyond the classroom!
Get inspired!
- A video explaining how cyber security works.
- A game by PBS about strengthening cyber security and where you protect your social media company.
- An article about why creating safe spaces for youth is important.
- An article outlining tips for parents regarding web safety for children.
- A video outlining different careers within cyber security.
- A ted talk discussing how to create a psychologically safe workplace.