How about a one-stop-shop that offers technical know-how for parents and teachers who want to teach internet literacy to young people? The Council of Europe offers an extensive handbook for free.

The handbook is available in HTML and Flash format for free and a printed version is available for EUR 13 (USD 20).

The handbook aims to:

• offer teachers and parents sufficient technical know-how to allow them to share young people’s and children’s voyages of discovery through communication technology;
• highlight ethical issues and give insight into added-value in education;
• provide ideas for constructive, practical activities in class or at home to draw benefits from the Internet and mobile technology;
• share best practice in widely varying domains of Internet use;
• provide links that will give further information or practical examples.

The content is divided into 25 fact sheets on themes such as searching for information, spam, chat, games, creativity, privacy, security, social networking, Web 2.0 and becoming an active e-citizen. Each fact sheet contains a general introduction to the theme, ethical considerations, best practice examples and links to further information.

If part of the goal is to engage the net generation, the web design should have received a serious face lift. Appearance aside, this is an important resource with much needed information in just the right amounts.

I would love to see a condensed, simplified version for teenagers — most often they have to acquire their internet literacy on their own. In this version, every fact sheet should have embed code and a button to share it on Facebook.

The Internet Literacy Handbook