Beware of IT

Coláiste Muire, Ennis, Co. Clare, 2016

CATEGORY: Social Innovation and STEM Challenge

The Idea

The Coláiste Muire team was motivated to drive awareness around the increasing dangers posed by the internet. In particular, the project focused on adolescent behaviours on social media sites.

As a Step Up project, the group built on and continued the efforts of the previous year’s team, who won the Young Social Innovator’s Gold Award in 2014

The group focused on the idea that teenagers have developed unhealthy online cultures, with many young people overly reliant on social network sites that create environments that fail to focus on the consequences misbehaving online.

The STEM Response

The group focused their efforts on using technology to develop their solution.

They began by hosting a technology-focused parents evening, with participation from children aged from 10 to 18 years. The participants took part in an informative, interactive talk on all aspects of social media.

They created an informative and accessible website dedicated to the promotion of internet safety. The site provided informative tips and advised on how to manage security settings on various social media sites. The website was also built as a platform to promote positive online behaviour.

The group also worked with vodafone employees to develop a mobile application that allows users to monitor usage of social media and to learn to improve their online behaviour.

The application focuses on social media friends, security settings and offensive language, with the ability to allow parents to receive a weekly report on how their children’s online behaviour rates on the app.

The team worked with RTE Prime Time reporters on how to set up a ficticious Facebook account (pretending to be a 16 year old schoolgirl) in their investigative efforts to identify child groomers online.

The Impact

The group worked with numerous high profile individuals and experts. These included various radio presenters, internet-safety expert Dr. Maureen Griffin, YSI co-founder Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, and RTE Prime Time presenters Aoife Hegarty and Sallyanne Godson.

The team also worked with parents, bringing adult and teenage audiences together in an interactive and innovative way to review and discuss issues around social media that affect them. Ultimately, solutions such as the website and app provided innovative technology-led ways to address internet safety concerns.

Working with investigative reporters from RTE, their efforts ultimately informed a feature on RTÉ’s Prime Time.

Challenge supported by