The internet plays a major role in our day-to-day activities, especially for children. It helps connect them regardless of their location, thus, allowing them to have fun and interact with all kinds of people at the same breathe. Not forgetting the impact it plays as far as education is concerned. Xbox believes that both gaming and technology are essential, with one premise to ensure that they safeguard the children in terms of the content that they are able to access whenever they get online.
Xbox is planning to provide caregivers and educators with resources, that will shed more light concerning online safety ahead of the 19th global Safe Internet Day. The resources will also provide more information in regard to how one can become a responsible digital citizen.
In that regard, Minecraft: Education Edition created a new immersive world dubbed CyberSafe: Home Sweet Hmm. it is specifically curated to help children identify potential dangers in the online space, and provides them with information about where to go whenever they need any form of assistance.
The game, which is free for Minecraft Education Edition users, comes with single-player lessons that assist young people to make better decisions by providing internet safety scenarios. This is based on the principle: Stop and think before you click. By March, the Adventure will be available in the Education Collection of the Minecraft Marketplace.
The game starts off while the players are in their virtual home, in the presence of a Trusted Adult. The trusted adult acts as a guide to the player throughout the game. The players then get to transition through the four pillars of cyber safety which include: password protection, verification of their contacts’ identities, prevention of scams, and phishing prevention. Here are the four challenges that the players will engage in during the Adventure:
- Want to play online with me– which aims to help the children to learn how to connect with people online safely. Building upon the skill of verification of the true identity of their true friends.
- Online maze? I can complete it– this challenge helps reinforce one essential rule, reminding the children that they should not share their credentials with anyone.
- New emerald armor?! Definitely– this challenge requires the players to share the account information to access the new emerald armor from MineMart. Players should protect their information at all times and ensure that no one has access.
- Yummy! Pumpkin pie- through this challenge children are able to learn about making an informed decision based on a series of factors.
Xbox also encourages parents to install tools such as the Xbox Family Safety App, it will help them keep tabs on how the kids interact with the internet. The Microsoft Family Safety App also allows caregivers to enforce healthy habits, ultimately protecting their loved ones. Xbox also has a chat filter that allows players to customize their gaming experience in regard to their preferences. The filter helps to block out any information or content that you might not want to engage with.
65% of the people are at the risk of online exposure, according to Microsoft’s 6th Annual study, “Civility, Safety and Interaction Online – 2022” and the newly updated “Digital Civility Index” (DCI) score. Since its debut in 2015, this is the best score yet.
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