The 'On-line ZOO': A Children's Book That Teaches Safe Behavior On The Internet
The book explains in a fun way the most common risks associated with Internet use to children of pre-school and younger school age. It is primarily intended for teachers, but others can use it as well.
In October, the CZ.NIC association expanded its publishing portfolio with the book “The Online ZOO”. The authors of the book are Daniela Drobna and Achmed Abdel-Salam. The book explains in a fun way the most common risks associated with Internet use to children of pre-school and younger school age. It is primarily intended for teachers, but others can use it as well. The translation of the original Austrian book was published as part of the Safer Internet project co-financed by Connecting Europe Facility of the European Union. The electronic version of the book is available for free download at https://knihy.nic.cz.
As the title suggests, young readers will find themselves in an unusual zoo, whose inhabitants are regular Internet users. Due to their actions, they also become exposed to its pitfalls without having a clue, and are faced with the formidable consequences such as cell phone addiction, cyber bullying or grooming. The zoo director Elsa comes to their aid and helps the animals solve their problems, explains their mistakes to them and shows them ways to avoid problems next time. That is how she introduces the basics of safe behavior on the Internet, which has become an everyday necessity.
“In our Safer Internet project, we are focusing on public awareness in the field of cyber security. We believe that the sooner the children get acquainted with their basics, the better. While there is a broad range of educational materials for teens, sources for younger children remain desperately scarce. In this sense, “The Online Zoo” is a good tool for those who want to prepare children for the possible risks in a fun way and advise them to be careful from an early age,” says Jiří Průša, project manager of the CZ.NIC association.
About The Authors
Daniela Drobna works at ISPA, where she is in charge of the Safer Internet project, as well as a variety of publications on topics related to online safety and media literacy. She studied German language and literature. She has received numerous awards for her work. The book was livened up with the illustrations by Achmed Abdel-Salam, a freelance screenwriter, director, actor and student of the Film Academy in Vienna. In 2013, he was awarded the Carl Mayer Award for the film “Der Rand”, and in 2014 he received a scriptwriting grant from the Literar Mehana Foundation.
About CZ.NIC Publications
CZ.NIC Publications is one of the many educational projects of the Czech national top-level domain administrator. The aim of this project is to publish both expert and popular publications associated with the Internet and its technologies. The first publication issued in 2008 was the second edition of the popular book by Pavel Satrapa “IPv6” (you can now find its third edition at the CZ.NIC Publications website). This was followed by the books “Pro Git” by Scott Chacon, “Dive into Python 3” by Mark Pilgrim, “The Wonderful World of Electronic Signatures” by Jiří Peterka, “Producing Open Source Software” by Karl Fogel, “The Internet as an Object of Law” by Ján Matejka, “Own Your Space” by Linda McCarthy and Denise Weldon-Siviy, “Responsibility on the Internet” by Martin Husovec, “LibreOffice Writer” by Vlastimil Ott, “Dive into HTML5” by Mark Pilgrim, “Modern Use of Moodle” by Václav Maněna et al., “How to Use the Internet” by Jiří Vaněk et al., “The Performance of Open Source Applications” by Tavish Armstrong, “CyberCrime” by Jan Kolouch, “A Guide to the Maze of Algorithms” by Martin Mareš and Tomáš Valla and “Logic Gates, Volts, Controllers” by Martin Malý.