The online course on the Google for Education website is designed to help teachers create a safe and positive online experience for students

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Feb 6th, 2018 - On Safer Internet Day, Google announced the launch of an online safety course in Arabic (g.co/DigitalCitizenshipCourseAR). The course is designed for teachers (and parents!) to help them learn how to create a safe and positive experience online for students. By taking the course, teachers will learn how to integrate online safety learning and activities into their classroom curriculum. Google also published localized video tutorials on YouTube that will offer children online safety tips like how to protect their devices, how to strengthen their sign-ins and how to avoid scams.

The digital citizenship course, which is found on the Google for Education website, focuses on four areas:

l Safety on the go - importance of strong passwords, how locking the mobile device helps protect personal information, how to avoid potentially harmful downloads, understanding the difference between private and public WiFi networks, and how to use the latter safely.

l Safe browsing - how to distinguish between legitimate and dubious sources of information and how to incorporate best practices to critically evaluate online sources of information.

l Safety from phishing and scams - how to recognize potential scams that happen on the web and through email, learning how to avoid them, understanding what encryption is, and how to check if a web page is encrypted.

l Online reputation management - understanding why privacy matters, how to help students identify and report inappropriate behavior, and help them think about how to conduct themselves online, even in the face of difficult situations.

Joyce Baz, Head of Communications at Google in MENA, said: “As people do more online everyday, they need to be able to connect and explore the web with confidence and trust to get the most out of it. We want to build a safer web for everyone so that it remains a positive, safe place that inspires everyone to do and discover more. We take online safety and the safety of the internet seriously with our products, tools, shared resources, as well as industry partnerships.”

According to a 2017 YouGov poll that surveyed 1000 millennials (ages 18-30) in the UAE, 56% of respondents said their parents or school teachers never spoke to them about the importance of strong passwords and online safety (54% in KSA, 60% in Egypt); 68% of respondents said they are worried about their online accounts being hacked (64% in KSA and 67% in Egypt) and only 1 in 4 said they use different passwords for their online services.

Google regularly publishes updated safety tools across its products and the wider internet on its Safety Center (google.com/safetycenter).