As parents and teachers have told children for decades: “It’s not the winning but the taking part that counts.”

The phrase was actually first uttered by the founder of the Olympics, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, who said: “The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not winning but taking part; the essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.” Of course these days it has come to mean that trying to do something is so much more worthwhile than not doing anything that the effort alone is worthy of celebration.

As previously mentioned, we were shortlisted this year in the Internet Matters Digital Safety Awards for Best Education Product or Service. We didn’t win but looking at our competition and the eventual winners, we were honored to even be included.

Both Tootoot and the Professionals Online Safety Helpline are incredible services that have been developed by some of the very best people in the industry and have years of development behind them. In as far as we are in “competition” with them, it is a race we are happy to be in and one that we hope many others will join as we all work toward helping children understand and deal with the new and novel challenges that the internet era brings.

As for our product – AtFirstSite – we are just starting out. We recently gave some teach-the-teacher training to our first set of pilot schools who will be testing out the course starting in the new school year. With that feedback, we intend to further improve the course and to keep on improving and updating it year after year. If we do it right, this time next year we will posting a different colored badge on a post outlining the excellent work that this community continues to do.