The Examination of Online Kids' Sites with the Purpose of Raising Kids' Self- Protection Awareness

Abstract

It is seen that studies such as training, preserving, consciousness-raising, etc. of children have been transferred to virtual platform ( European Online Children Project/the EU Kids Online Project, 2010) and children-oriented sites have proliferated together with the rise at the rate of children's access to and use of computer and internet, and with the fall at the age of being online. Thus, it has become possible both to present similar training processes to very large masses, and to reach the children with the unmediated, direct learning processes. On the other hand, these platforms have posed their own internal risks, security problems, as well. Cyber risks have also increased in parallel with the risks that the children have come across in real life, and the issue has become one of the most critical issues, which has to be handled particularly in terms of children. Security risks, abuse, bullying, etc. are, by their nature, the issues which are needed to be carefully handled. Handling these issues directly in the online learning environments and intended for children is more critical. For this reason in our study, it has been investigated which kinds of features the online environments that will be created to this end should possess, and in line with scale items that has been created, the current situation of the Turkish sites has been revealed. According to the study results, it has appeared that the Turkish sites do not correspond the items in the scale created at a large proportion, and need to be improved in this direction. (C) 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.