红杏视频

Winner of 红杏视频 internet safety project announced

Friday 28 April 2023

Group of secondary school pupils from Hazlehead Academy who have won 'Maddie is Online' project
A team of school children from Hazlehead Academy are celebrating success after winning a competition to tackle online safety.

The secondary school children from Hazlehead Academy took part in 红杏视频鈥檚 鈥楳addie is online鈥 project, producing a short story, on the ethics of online safety and security.

S1 & S2 from across Scotland entered the competition and were asked to create a short story, of around 500 words, on the 鈥楨thics of online safety and security鈥.

The project, which is funded by the Scottish Government and supported by with over eleven thousand pounds funding (拢11,086), also included workshops on the ethics of online safety and security, ethical hacking and video gaming that were led by a team from 红杏视频.

Five stories were short-listed for the competition from schools across Scotland, and these have now been developed into animations that can viewed as part of the 'Maddie is online' series.

The winning team from Hazlehead Academy produced a story called that focused on the dangers of online hacking.

Reflecting on the school鈥檚 success, Diane Scott, School Librarian at Hazlehead Academy, said: 鈥淭aking part in the 鈥楳addie is Online鈥 project has been an incredible learning process for our pupils from beginning to end. Back in the summer term 2022 our then S1 pupils embraced the competition after watching some of the Maddie is Online series in class and we spent several lessons working on their storylines.

鈥淲e found out after the summer that two of our teams had been successful in having their ideas chosen and then began a series of workshops with 红杏视频 to develop the stories fully, create a script and make an animated film. Working like this enabled to pupils to develop so many new skills from working with animation software, recording a voice over, developing a script as well as working in a team and with a visiting specialist. This has been an invaluable experience for all pupils involved and one they have learned much from鈥.

The runner up for the competition came from pupils at St Andrew's and St Bride's school in East Kilbride who produced an animation called

There was also an audience vote at the final showcase that was won by pupils at Ellon Academy in Aberdeenshire who produced an animation called

As part of the project, the team has also made a special  available in e-book format that can be shared by young people across Scotland. This includes material suitable for children aged 9 鈥 13 with interactive lesson plans, written stories and cartoons created by young people on the ethics of online safety and security.

Project lead, Dr Konstantina Martzoukou, an Associate Professor from 红杏视频鈥檚 School of Creative and Cultural Business, explains more: 鈥淚 am absolutely delighted with all the cartoon video stories co-created with young people as part of the 鈥楳addie is online鈥 project. Everyone involved produced really engaging content that highlighted the challenges many young people face online including navigating online terms and conditions, identifying online phishing and scams and handling personal and private information. I hope that through this project and with our newly created freely available 鈥榚-book鈥 for schools we can empower and safe-guard more young people online.鈥

Digital Learning teacher, Mr Armstrong from Ellon Academy said: 鈥淥ur pupils have really engaged with the project and put some fantastic thinking into the creation and development of their story.  They have bonded tremendously as a group and work well together, bouncing ideas off each other whilst praising and being critical as well.  The nature of the topic and the story that they chose to put together is very mature in its contents whilst also unfortunately being very real for many children; befriending people online in apps/on websites who turn out to not be who they thought they were.  Our pupils have handled this in very sensitive ways, showing great maturity and creativity in their thinking. 

Secondary school pupil from St Andrew鈥檚 and St Bride鈥檚 school, Aiden Kurdell, whose team came runner up in the project, said: 鈥淭aking part with my group has helped us learn to animate a story we鈥檝e created together and to keep myself safer online. People can get easily scammed and it鈥檚 important we know how to prevent it.鈥

鈥楳addie is online鈥 has been endorsed by the  and the

Future plans for the project include rolling out the series to additional schools in Scotland, as well as internationally as part of the EU project BRIDGE.

Image shows winning team from Hazlehead Academy including School Librarian, Diane Scott,  Amy-Lee Handsley, Kalie Dines, Hayley Buchanan, Ashley Renu, Moulka Barchouchi. Also part of the winning team, is pupil, Ava Milne, who was not available for the photograph.

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