Media Awareness Network Launches Tool to Ensure Teens are Safe and Wise Cybercitizens

March 29, 2011 (Ottawa) – Media Awareness Network (MNet) today launched MyWorld: A digital literacy tutorial for secondary students. This engaging interactive resource helps teens develop critical thinking skills that can be applied to their online lives.

Made possible through financial contributions from Inukshuk Wireless Learning Plan Fund and TELUS, MyWorld places students in online settings that mimic their own digital world. As they navigate through popular environments such as search engines, instant messaging systems, social networking sites and file-sharing services, students learn and practice the skills they should be using online every day.

"Young people in Canada are increasingly living their lives online, but they don't necessarily know how to deal with – or avoid – the potential downside of their online activities," said Jane Tallim, MNet's Co-Executive Director. "We've designed MyWorld to mirror their life experiences so they can learn how to manage these risks and challenges in the safety of a classroom setting."

To reflect the complexity of teen's online activities, students playing MyWorld assume a variety of roles – student, friend, peer and mentor – as they use online tools for homework, managing relationships, researching topics of personal interest and participating in social activism.

MyWorld is a follow-up to Passport to the Internet, MNet's highly acclaimed interactive Internet literacy tutorial for students in Grades 4-8. Licences for Passport to the Internet are held in every province and territory in the country.

For more information on MyWorld, visit /en/learningtutorialsandmodules/myworld-overview

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Media Awareness Network (MNet) is a Canadian not-for-profit centre for media literacy and digital literacy. Its vision is that young people have the critical thinking skills to engage with media as active and informed digital citizens. MNet's programs are funded by its public and private sector sponsors, donors and partners, who include: CTV • Shaw • Bell • TELUS • Canadian Internet Registration Authority • Google • National Film Board of Canada • Government of Canada. (/)

Contact: Ann Marie Paquet, Communications Officer, Media Awareness Network
613-224-7721 ext. 231, apaquet@media-awareness.ca