Promoting awareness of Internet safety in Taiwan in-service teacher education: A ten-year experience

Abstract

The Internet has changed many people's lives, in both positive and negative ways. The Taiwan Ministry of Education has recognized the Internet's possible risks and has initiated the island-wide Teacher Awareness of Internet Safety (TAIS) project for elementary and middle school teachers since 2000. TAIS project is the first large-scale, government-run, ongoing project that addresses Internet safety in Chinese. The researchers discuss the development of and the evaluation of the TAIS project over its ten-year history (2000-2009). The researchers also present the processes and products of the TAIS project. The TAIS project has used design-based research (DBR) to outline its initial design, data collection and analysis, macrocycle-level analysis, design adjustment, and theory or policy building in three consecutive stages. The present article also offers some general reflections on the lessons learned and the methodology used in this project, as well as some suggestions for future research in this area. (C) 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.