A handbook for children’s safe and healthy access to the online world, written on the basis of the experiences of parents, teachers, and educators in Milan. This is the goal of the City of Milan’s “Digital Education Agreement”, an initiative promoted by the University of Milan-Bicocca and the municipal administration, which opens up to the city with a series of public events that can be attended at the Fabbrica del Vapore and streamed.
Following the initial discussion stage that took place in February with teachers, parents and pupils from five comprehensive schools, the project, which was presented during the Milano Digital Week in November, is now getting into full swing with information meetings to share the goals, the results of the exploratory phase and expert advice. Entitled “Digital at school and in the family: do we give ourselves rules?”, the first meeting scheduled for Saturday 25 March at 10.30 a.m. will discuss the impact of digital technology on minors from a social and psycho-pedagogical perspective. On 29 April, at the same time, the effects on well-being and health will be examined, while on 6 May, legal and safety aspects will be addressed. The conclusions will form the basis for the next phase of the project which, between May and June, will include a questionnaire survey to families with minors and teachers in the city of Milan.
“The discussion of the relationship between children and the digital world is increasingly topical, a subject of debate for the entire educating community,” stresses Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Education Anna Scavuzzo. Digital tools are now also part of children’s daily lives, and it is essential that specialists and academics open up to a public dialogue with families, parents, schools and other educational institutions. Within the framework of the Musa project, paths can therefore be built to jointly arrive at educational proposals, concrete tools for activities, attention and guidance useful to families, as well as to educators and teachers.”
“The goal,” explains Layla Pavone, coordinator of the Board for Innovation and Digital Transformation of the City of Milan, “as anticipated in the presentation of the initiative to the public during Milan Digital Week, is to arrive at a document with recommendations on digital education for children and pre-adolescents, written in a participatory manner and as an expression of the entire city community. This is a need that has been presented to us from many parties in the city, particularly from parents’ groups. The underlying idea is that a joint effort to agree on some concrete guidelines and choices can help families, and in general those involved in educational processes, to gradually introduce their children to the online world.”
The project’s goals include suggestions regarding the minimum age for a first smartphone and for independent web surfing, limits on children’s use of social networks, and school requirements for homework to be done online.
“It is increasingly evident that digitalisation,” observes Marco Gui, lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Social Research at the University of Milan-Bicocca and director of the ‘Benessere Digitale’ research centre, “is making the task of education, at school and in the family, more complex due to risks associated with the early use of digital devices, in terms of both safety and health. Parents very often feel unprepared for this task due to a lack of technical knowledge, as well as the fact that strong social and commercial pressures make it difficult to make appropriate choices in a context where sometimes everything seems inevitable. There are already many initiatives on these issues, but a truly collective discussion has not yet taken place. There is a lack of guidance on concrete issues to support families. A shared effort is needed to make a systemic contribution to helping parents, providing them with guidance and tools to tackle one of the most demanding educational challenges of our time. Milan, which is at the forefront of digital transformation, can also spearhead innovation on this front.”
The meetings will be streamed live and can be rewatched at www.youtube.com/@pattoeducativodigitale.
After each meeting, it will be possible to participate in the discussion via the partecipMi platform: www.partecipami.it/pattoeducativodigitale.
The initiative is within the framework of the Musa project (Ecosystems of Innovation) and in particular responds to one of the main goals of the focus area (Spoke 6) aimed at making innovative and emerging technologies more inclusive and accessible.
The project involves the collaboration of the parents of “Aspettando lo smartphone”, Sicupp Lombardia, the School of the Local Police Corps, ATS Milano, the Milan Territorial School Office, Corecom Lombardia, the Open Schools Office, the Guarantor of Children’s and Adolescents’ Rights, and the Observatory for Countering Bullying and Cyberbullying.