In September 2018 our Danish CyGen team participated in the annual European Educational Research Conference (ECER). This year the main conference theme was Inclusion and Exclusion, Resources for Educational Research? The conference was in the beautiful city of Bolzano, Italy.
The Danish team held a double paper presentation with the titles: “Co-creating an Educational Package with children on the topic of Safe internet behaviour and good practice online” and “Children as co-researchers – including children in developing and collecting data as part of a European Research Project on Digital Safety”.
The aim of the papers was to present our research to educational researchers across Europe, giving them a strong insight into how we use participatory design to involve children, teachers and parents in the development of the digital tool. The presentations also included preliminary findings from focus group interviews with children, parents and teachers.
Our papers were well received, opening up fruitful discussions on the similarities across European countries in the challenges children, parents and teachers faces going online – and how to address these challenges. Discussions centered on the question of the definition on danger online – and if children define danger online in the same way adults do. The network for whom the presentation was held also showed interest in seeing the finalized digital tool and the CyGen team have been invited to return to ECER 2019 to present this – exciting times!
Heidi Stensman Pugh
Danish CyGen Team
Lecturer, VIA University College