Between November 28 and December 5, DRONI facilitated a Training Course titled Privacy4youth. The project was held in Bakuriani, Georgia and it was part of the Erasmus+ programme, supported and promoted by the European Union.
The project aimed to increase the level of media literacy of young people by informing them about a healthy way of using digital media and to reach out to youngsters with means of digital youth work. The training course brought together 24 participants from Georgia, Norway, Armenia, Croatia, Ukraine, and, Lithuania.
A report from the project was written by ESC volunteer SAMUEL:
DAY 1.
“Today, on the 29th of November, officially the training course names “Privacy4youth” kicked off. The participants mostly focused on getting to know each other, learning some interesting and funny facts about each other in order to create a safe environment for upcoming days.
The project takes place in beautiful Bakuriani and of course, we could not spend time indoors, so we had a nice activity named “Walky-Talky”, we were having some walk through the forest, enjoying sunny weather, mountains and having time to ask some interesting questions to each other. In the second part of the day, we mostly focused on the program and slowly we started to touch on the topic: Digital youth work. It seems that we will have a very interesting and full of experience working week.”
DAY 2.
“The second working day of the project “Privacy4youth” started with the little game called Cola, Fanta, Sprite. This concentration and little confusion woke us all up and lightened the still sleepy mood in the room.
The first session dealt with the topic of e-slang. In principle, these are frequently used terms associated with digital applications. All of them were new and not easy to understand. The next learning method to consolidate the new terms was a quiz similar to “Who wants to be a millionaire? We divided the group into 5 teams who then tried to shine intellectually in a friendly competition.
After a pleasant coffee break, our trainer confronted us with 4 questions on the topic of privacy about the digital space. We were asked what we imagine privacy to be, but also what we would or rather can do if our privacy is violated. Next, the teams had to answer one of the four questions creatively. The task demanded a healthy imagination and results were surprisingly varied. We saw a theatre performance, a funny PowerPoint and even a singing performance.
Afterward, we learned about threat modelling, a method of using targeted questions to avert the risk of a threat. We then immediately tried out this model on an example: a jeweller who wants to protect his expensive property. We even developed our own threat modelling on a topic of our own choice.
The last session dealt with trolls on the internet, a phenomenon on social media where individuals create fake profiles and try to cause chaos online with targeted false information. A basic distinction is made between classic trolls and hybrid trolls. Thank you for this interesting day and the new-learned knowledge.”
DAY 3.
“On Wednesday first day of December, we had a super interesting day where we learned a lot. It started with a kind of scissors, rock, paper. Our modified form with walking, growing & laughing was quite a hit. After that, we were shown one of George Orwell’s most famous quotes: Big Brother Is Watching You! We gathered our own impressions and experiences with this term and after we were given a guided tour of professional Google techniques, we were allowed to play Big Brother ourselves. The test person Lisa F. was the target of our research and it felt sick how much you could find out about a person with just a little effort… Be responsible and careful with your data!
To surf the net more securely, we were recommended four simple apps or techniques that encrypt data or prevent app tracking. You can find the links in the photos. We then practised for a while with a few application tasks and everyday scenarios. We used the breaks to celebrate the first snow of the year. we carefully rolled white balls and threw them in each other’s faces:) After 6 general questions about our passwords, almost all of us realized how insecure we actually are in the digital space. No one used the code: 1234567 or Password123 but many use their password for several services or rarely or never change it. So we talked for a while about really secure passwords and were presented with a rather tricky variant: 1. take a sentence, 2. take the first letters, 3. replace letters with numbers or characters: a to @; E to 3. The result is really unrecognizable.
The day then ended with the unattractive but so important topic of fake news, how to recognize, avoid and prevent it.
DAY 4.
“Second of December is supposed to be a beautiful day: Breakfast, short program and then time for own initiative. We get a long afternoon free to explore the area ourselves The task for the morning was to present the respective sending organization in a few minutes, for which posters were made and powerpoints created. After the presentations, questions could of course be asked. ”
LAST DAYS
“What happened on Friday the 3rd of December? Of course, the Energizer advisory suggested a lively exercise: Music and dance. The group was fun to watch, with everything from professional demonstrators to incompetent beginners.
The next task was to find and collect certain items from a list given to us. The result looked a bit jumbled and disjointed, from a cup filled with water to a biro wrapped in tape. What we only realised when we compared the results was that each group had different starting conditions. The lack of information prevented a fair competition and this was to lead us to the next item on our agenda: Injustice and human rights on the internet.
In addition to the 30 human rights recognised worldwide, there are human rights for the digital space developed by experts in 2010. The commission developed 10 universal rights that should apply but have not yet achieved a great response. Our task was to read and understand the rules before discussing them in the group. The following days and hours were used to incorporate the new knowledge into new projects, i.e. we first gathered in groups of the respective countries, i.e. Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Croatia, Lithuania and Norway, and thought about how to spread the ideas in our communities. To do this, we drew up an action plan describing the specific topics, when the course should take place and other important information. At the end of the day, we had a formulated plan in our hands, now it is up to us to implement it.
After the assignment, a quiz teaches us about the European Erasmus+ programme and the ESC. The 12 questions sparked a small competition among the groups and fed with this knowledge we were able to come up with our own project without any restrictions and with absolute freedom. Tomorrow we will present our results!”