Student and teacher representatives from the North Zone attended a half-day social media cyber wellness workshop at Hougang Secondary School yesterday. The programme, called ‘The TOP SECRET Experience’, consists of two components – an interactive exhibit, and an immersive learning experience called ‘Vanishing Victoria’.
Mr Chong Ee Jay, Assistant Manager of TOUCH Cyber Wellness said, “‘The TOP SECRET Experience’ is definitely the first of its kind in Singapore – providing cyber safety education through interactive and immersive experiential learning, which promotes self-directed and collaborative learning amongst the students. Through this, cyber wellness lessons come alive and the students themselves play an active part in learning through the exhibits as well as reflecting upon the experiential learning with the help of trainers around.”
Through the interactive exhibit, students learn the dos and don’ts of using social media. Privacy concepts covered include what makes a strong password, identifying content safe to post, the dangers of turning on location-based services and who users should not befriend on social media. The exhibit also introduces security tips on how to manage cookies and identify common malware.
Inspired by Korean reality game shows and escape room games, ‘Vanishing Victoria’ is modelled after a fictional crime scene. Students take on the role of police detectives tasked to solve the disappearance of 14-year-old Victoria. Solving the case allows students to find out about Victoria’s dangerous social media habits, thus learning to avoid such behaviour. Separately, this programme was carried out as part of a pilot project across Hougang Secondary School’s lower secondary cohort in February.
Infocomm Technology teacher-in-charge at Hougang Secondary School, feels that the knowledge students learn from the programme will “benefit (them) because they are on social media most of the time.” Compared to the usual classroom setting, he explains that it is more effective as it allows two-way learning where students can be involved in the process.
‘The TOP SECRET Experience’ is part of a wider campaign to educate youths about social media privacy and security. It also includes a free e-guidebook, called ‘The TOP SECRET Social Media Survival Guide’, downloadable on the campaign website http://www.topsecretsg.com.
This is a final-year project by four students from the Nanyang Technological University, Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, in partnership with TOUCH Cyber Wellness, and supported by the Central Singapore Community Development Council.
