The Estonian Union for Child Welfare, the coordinator of the Estonian Safer Internet Centre, has launched an educational online advent calendar for children. The purpose of the calendar is to offer practical tips and advice on how to use the Internet and digital devices safely and wisely.

Kerli Valner, Awareness raising coordinator at the Estonian Union for Child Welfare, explains: “An advent calendar doesn’t have to feature only pictures or chocolate; it can also be a fun tool for learning. For the past four years, we have published an online advent calendar for children, which can be used at home or in school. It includes 24 windows containing helpful tips and interactive tasks that guide children step by step toward becoming more digitally competent. Solving these tasks takes no more than 15 minutes, ensuring that children do not spend excessive time in front of screens.”

Last year, the Estonian Union for Child Welfare introduced an online advent calendar titled “Robot Otto Smartly on the Web” for children aged 7 to 12. In this calendar, Robot Otto teaches children about topics such as understanding computers and smart devices, using them safely and wisely, avoiding fraud and viruses, being cautious about sharing personal information online, the importance of digital clean-up, and so on. The tasks and topics were developed in collaboration with Mikk Oad, an informatics teacher at Rocca al Mare School.

The calendar also allowed users to submit solution and provide feedback in its final window. Feedback from children, parents, and teachers highlighted its value as both an educational and engaging tool for learning about online safety. For example, a second-grade teacher shared: “We opened a window of the advent calendar every day, and the students loved it. It has been the most useful calendar so far.” Children particularly enjoyed solving the interactive tasks. 

To make the calendar usable year-round, it is now available as a digital resource titled 'Robot Otto Smartly on the Web'.

This year, the Estonian Union for Child Welfare invites children, along with their parents and teachers, to join Bitt’s and Bait’s Christmas adventure through an online educational advent calendar. This year's calendar focuses on topics such as understanding media and information literacy, responsible internet use, copyright, maintaining health while using digital devices, and so on. 

The tasks were developed in collaboration with Elyna Heinmäe, a lecturer in educational technology at Tallinn University. The advent calendar is available on the Estonian Safer Internet Centre website.

Find more information about the work of the Estonian Safer Internet Centre, including its awareness raising, helpline, hotline, and youth participation services, or find similar information for other Safer Internet Centres throughout Europe.