Dimapur, Sep. 26 (EMN): Don Bosco Institute for Development and Leadership (DBIDL), Dimapur, has organised a Media Awareness Programme (MAP) for teachers of various schools in Dimapur from September 2 to 26 with the participation of 124 teacher representatives from seven schools.
The participating schools included Cambridge School (on September 2), Eden Higher Secondary School (on September 6), King David and Care Well Schools (on September 9), Dimapur Mission Higher Secondary School (on September 16), Evershine School (on September 19), and Nguliee Memorial High School (on September 26).
In his welcome address, DBIDL director, Fr. CT Varghese, stressed on the urgent need for media awareness among the teachers to enable them help students to use modern mass media intelligently. He was of the opinion that the programme will ensure gainful use of the media while avoiding many pitfalls which are always associated with the glamorous electronic gadgets.
The resource person of the MAP, Fr. Jonas Kerketta enlightened the participants on the concept of communication and various aspects of cyberspace.
In the first session, he dealt with the meaning of the term ‘communication,’ wherein he expounded on the process of communication, barriers, types of human communication etc. In the second session, he dwelt on the topic of cyber world – changing cyberspace and scenario, urgent need for cyber wisdom, some examples of online abuses and exploitations (online theft of identity, e-mail spoofing, the Nigerian scam, cyber morphing, cyber defamation, cyber hacking, cyber stalking, cyber pornography, cyber flirting, cyber bullying, etc.).
He also spoke on the dangers of cyber addiction with its harmful effects and on ‘selfies,’ which at times can turn out to be fatal and narcissistic. He also dealt with the current problem of the online game ‘Blue Whale Challenge’ reportedly invented by the Russian convict Philipp Budeikin, which had claimed several young lives worldwide.
The resource person expounded the two topics of communication and cyber world with inputs interspersed with real life examples, interesting video clippings as well as brief power-point presentations. He also suggested on some necessary steps for intelligent use of the Internet: (a) making a cyber-policy in institutions, (b) researches on the use and misuse of the Internet, (c) establishing a cyber-cell in institutions to receive complaints and take suitable measures to help the victims, (d) educating students on various cybercrimes and their after-effects, (e) organizing seminars, awareness programmes, regular campaigns and group discussions on the use of the Internet, (f) having trained counselling teams to help cyber addicts, (g) trained peer teams to help their equals having cyber addiction tendencies, (h) using the PTA meetings for awareness on life in the cyber world, etc.
Moreover, he referred to some spiritual measures taken by some organisations to help users of the social media to face the onslaught of the cyber world especially on the gullible youth. In particular, he mentioned Biblica’s efforts in this direction through its effective programme called ‘Reach for Life’ (R4L).
