BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Lidia de Reese works as Associate Media Education at fragFINN e.V. in Berlin. Before that she was Project Associate of fragFINN at the Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Multimedia-Diensteanbieter (FSM) e.V. She is responsible for setting-up and constantly checking the age-appropriate whitelist of fragFINN for children up to 12 years and assorting content for the children’s search engine www.fragFINN.de. Throughout these tasks she has gained extensive experiences in assessing and evaluating online and multimedia content.In her previous work for different institutions of media education she also focussed on analysing and evaluating media content aimed at children, such as chat rooms or television and radio programs. Furthermore, she conducted research and organised projects concerning media literacy of children and young people. She received her degree Magistra Artium (M.A.) at the University of Leipzig, Germany.

ABSTRACT

Parallel session: Positive online content for children

Presentation title: fragFINN - Safe Surfing Environment and Search Engine for Children

Background

fragFINN started in 2007 as part of the initiative “A Net for Children”. First realised as a project by the Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle Multimedia-Diensteanbieter (FSM) e.V., a corporate society was founded November 2009 (fragFINN e.V.). Funding comes from the telecommunications, online and media industry.

Mission Statement

fragFINN provides a safe place in the Internet that allows children aged 8 to 12 years of age to go online without any risk of finding harmful content. Following a whitelist-based approach, fragFINN promotes the positive diversity of the Internet for children. Children can pursue their interests over the full length and breadth of the Internet and learn how to use the medium responsibly and on their own. fragFINN allows easy access to interesting and multifaceted websites and supports children’s continuous education in the field of media literacy.

Facts and Figure

- fragFINN is based on an extensive list of websites that all have been checked by media pedagogy experts

- To be included on the whitelist, websites must fulfill criteria which have been defined and are regularly refined by an expert consortium. Each domain included is checked against the set of criteria and reviewed regularly

- Everybody (children, parents, teachers, providers) is invited to propose web sites to be included into the whitelist

- As the scope of fragFINN is rapidly getting bigger, it is now a “contact point” for content providers, parents and teachers when dealing with children and the Internet

- The search engine www.fragFINN.de children is based on the fragFINN whitelist and provides a quick and easy access to websites following children’s interests and best practice examples for children’s chat rooms, game sites or news pages are being given

- A specific section for parents and teachers with information on the subject of safe surfing for children and various materials for download is provided.