In spite of lurid press stories, children are still being tempted to befriend the wrong people on the internet. Chatguide is a 15-minute video, narrated by Meera Syal, which explains the “rules of the road” for online travellers. It’s accompanied by a useful set of lesson plans and teachers’
notes. These suggest how students - the most vulnerable are those aged 11-16 - can monitor their own use of the internet. It also promotes discussion about how sexual offenders “groom” children into cyberfriendships that can turn, disastrously, into something more real and much more dangerous.The Chatguide video is being distributed to secondary schools. www.bbc.co.ukchatguide
