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Privacy Playground: The First Adventure of the Three CyberPigs [] Media Awareness Network (MNet) is a Canadian non-profit organization which creates and develops programs for media and digital literacy. This organization was established in 1996. The first goal was to educate and to provide materials for adults to educate young people about media. MNet now provides talking tips for parents about home use and over 200 lessons for grades K-12. The organization also provides research and essays on media topics. MNet wanted all teachers and librarians up to speed with information and tools dealing with media. Therefore, professional development materials and free classroom resources were provided in the beginning. The organization expanded to include Internet programs and resources invented for young people to use as well as community organizations. Ideeclic uses high-end graphics with innovative technology qualities. Ideeclic tries to be aware of the needs of the audiences. Ideeclic created Privacy Playground: The First Adventure of the Three CyberPigs for MNet to reach children between the ages of eight and ten. This game focuses on the importance protecting private information. The game teaches children not to give out personal information on the Internet. Before you play the game with students, plan on two weeks of mini-lessons that are provided in the 34 page teacher’s guide. Teacher background information and the pre-game discussion and activities serve an important purpose. These activities introduce students to marketing and advertising. The Internet allows marketers to gather information, target, and engage children. Most young people today are online daily. Therefore, students need to become aware of how marketers elicit personal information on the Internet, the strategies marketers use to target children online, and people they encounter on the Internet may not be who they say they are. The first mini-lesson, Buy Me That, introduces students to advertising. Students create a birthday gift list and discuss how they heard about those items and which items were advertised on TV. Students define advertising as a message that tries to sell you something. Students examine advertisements to see what strategies the marketers use. Students work with the following strategies: ideal kids, family fun, excitement, star power, bandwagon, scale, put-dons, repetition, heart strings, sounds good, cartoon characters, omission, are you cool enough, and facts and figures. The second mini-lesson focuses on weasel words. Advertisers by law must tell the truth. However, these words can mislead the viewer. Students examine ads for weasel words. Plus, students create an ad for a gift on the birthday list using weasel words. The next set of mini-lessons focuses on the Internet and privacy. Students are introduced to the terms, cyberspace and virtual communities. Students participate in activities and discussions about e-mail, instant messaging, and social networking. The main idea is keeping you safe and your private information secret. Students develop an understanding of the nature of the Internet, how the Internet tracks and collects data on the users, and why it is important not to give out personal data on the Internet. Students are now ready to play the game. The characters, Lil, Les, and Mo Pig are friends who decide to play online games in cyberspace. Using instant messaging, they decide to meet at Virtual Pigsty. They earn points to buy cyber pets, food, and toys. They can even build a mud-wrestling pen. The pigs fill out contest forms and even a survey. As the pigs make decisions, an alien called Zorf Spunick flies into the screen to ask yes and no questions about the choices the pigs are making online. The student earns stars for correct answers. It does not matter if the answer is correct or not, the alien gives feed back to the students after each question. As the pigs are playing at Virtual Pigsty, Lil’s Inbox is invaded by spam. The pigs decided to stop playing. The next part of the game includes the Big Bad Wolf as he searches IM profiles and sees the information the pigs filled out on the survey and contest forms. He contacts Les as the sweet Ima Lamb. They agree to meet at his home. Lucky for him, his mother arrives just in time. Once the game is complete, the students earn a score for the game. If you score well, the alien congratulates you and reviews the main points again. If you do not score well, the alien encourages you to play again and reviews the main points. Most of the dialogue is audio. However, strong readers will have to be teamed up with other students. The students need to read the messaging, forms, and surveys. This game must be played multiple times. The questions were easily answered correctly so I would use the game score as a base line. *Students play the game and just answer the questions. *Students play again and focus on the hidden advertising strategies and media ploys. Students record their findings. *As the class plays the game, before you click yes or no to Zorf Spunick questions, students give answers and explain. Students should share their findings of advertising strategies and media ploys used in Virtual Pigsty. *Students should explain using the graphics how the Big Bad Wolf finds his personal information. This site has a “continue button” on each page that keeps students from being “too click happy.” However, while the pigs are talking, you can proceed to the next page without hearing the discussion. As a teacher, I would have to closely monitor the students to be sure they are not rushing through the game. The post-game mini-lesson guides the teacher to discuss the students’ experiences and what they learned from the game. Also, the questions bring the important main ideas of personal safety and marketing techniques and gimmicks back to a personal level. As a final product, I would have students design a project that explains what they have learned. In the teacher’s guide, suggestions are provided. Students could create a poster, game, etc. I would use a project plus the discussion questions, and the game score to assess the students’ understanding.  Playing just the game would not be enough to develop a deep understanding of the main ideas of this lesson. However, taking two to three weeks to complete the mini-lessons, the game, and the post game activities would be a benefit for all students.