On October 4th, TELUS announced the launch of a new cyber safety resource, TELUS WISE (Wise Internet and Smartphone Education), a unique program available to Canadians for free, offering seminars and online resources that will help keep all members of Canadian families safer online. Whether it’s protecting children from cyberbullying and sexual exploitation or keeping elderly safe from financial fraud and identity
theft, developing more online-savvy is critical to a family’s overall safety when using the Internet on computers, tablets and smartphones alike.
According to TELUS, the program has two parts – one aimed at adults interested in keeping themselves and their families safe; the second tailored to appeal directly to youth. TELUS is scheduling free, public TELUS WISE seminars led by specially-trained TELUS team members at convenient locations across the country and is also inviting groups to book their own seminars – a workplace, community centre, school, parenting group or senior’s centre, for example. Individuals can also book a one-on-one session with trained team members at more than 200 TELUS stores. TELUS WISE educational material will also be available on a secure TELUS WISE portal, available to anyone who wants to educate themselves on the safe use of smartphones, tablets and computers.
As a parent who IS vaguely techno savvy, I think this is a great step in the right direction. The site has loads of links to video and articles about the latest news about cyber security and teen and tween tech use. I think the idea of seminars is great and that working with communities is crucial and is one of the things that TELUS does best. However, I do hope the site is a work in progress and that people will speak in about what they need in regards to the sites development and resources.
Personally, I think the site is too …vague..for lack of a better word. I would like to see a site that focused on the basics and had that information RIGHT there, for a parent to find without any undue searching. I think I want the sense that TELUS is trying to help us use their products and services to their maximum and safest.
I would like a parent who goes to this site to see RIGHT AWAY that they can click on a quick check list on ‘IS YOUR CHILD READY FOR A SMART PHONE,’ or ‘HOW TO CHECK YOUR TWEENS PRIVACY SETTINGS,’ right there on the landing page. I would like a quick easy access list for seniors to check what is or what is not a scam when it comes to unsolicited emails or calls claiming to be from ‘Microsoft.’
The help needs to be right there with as little searching as possible, otherwise people are not going to look for it, in my opinion. Community outreach is part of it cyber safety for sure, but we need to make sure that the information is easy to find when people go looking and I don’t think the site is there yet.
I would ask you to go and register and look around, take a look at the articles and tutorials and see what you think. They have forums set up, but I don’t think they have a moderator running them, so there is no dialogue there yet. Hopefully more will be done to encourage this in the near future.
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