Enter the digital literacy lessons. I created my own presentations fashioned after Google's Be Internet Awesome resource guide with additions as I found them or as they came up organically in the lessons. What I thought, in about February, would take a few weeks, has consumed essentially the rest of the year. The kids are so interested, so involved, and they have SOOOO many questions.
For sub plans, when necessary, I have also included articles from PebbleGo Next on: Information Technology, What is the Internet?, Internet Publishing, Global Communication, and Online Safety, as well as BrainPOP's videos on Digital Citizenship. The students are really interested and engaged.
I haven't really incorporated the Interland experiences yet. I hope to find time for it in June as I think it is a valuable part of the lessons. This is all taking so much longer than I had planned. I guess that is a caveat I would give to other users of the Be Internet Awesome lessons -be aware that you are opening a can of worms! TA's, aides, volunteers, and other teachers who have wandered in and heard part or all of a lesson think that it is great that I am teaching it and they realize how much it is needed, BUT most would be nervous to attack it themselves because there is so much we don't know and sometimes the kids bring up something inappropriate. This is not so much to disrupt the class as because they don't know who else to ask. You definitely have to be on your toes. I just admit what I don't know and try to find answers for them. Shockingly, most of the kids were using devices with no security protection at all. Over the course of several weeks, they begged me to tell them what to get to protect their devices. I ended up posting a series of links to reviews of security software and apps.
Let's see what the "Thing" has to offer to help improve this for next year.
I added the Common Sense "I took a photo" poster into my lessons for next year as I think it will really help them fully think out the posting idea.
So the CEOP video. I actually watched this months ago in preparation for what I was teaching. I think it is a good video, BUT..... I think some kids would get too scared. I know that some of the parents in my district would object. Plus the British accent would throw some of them. Wish there were a slightly tamer American version.
I peeked at the Notes at the bottom... I used to use the Common Sense Digital Passport with the kids. At that point, it was pretty student-directed to watch the videos and complete the various aspects of the passport. I did have to check their scores because if I didn't ANYONE would pass even if they didn't really try, but I figured that out and made it work. The kids came in at recess or on their own time to get access to a computer to finish the lessons and earn their passport. It worked fairly well. But what with the changes I saw, it didn't seem to be the best choice anymore. The students can get to the games without the learning anything first. I wish they still offered the old method because not every school has someone devoting all of this class time to teaching digital citizenship and even I can't at all grades. A site where they had to watch videos, perhaps play a game, and answer a quiz of some sort would allow people to use it as a flipped classroom model. I checked and videos still exist, but they seem fairly buried and hard to get to. Maybe I could make a Symbaloo out of it if I find the time.
I tried to do the Pipl search, but you need an account and the last thing I need is another account. I was successful with the Family Tree Now search however. Scary how they could link to information from SOOOO long ago.
I looked at What Your Students Really Need to Know About Digital Citizenship. Regarding the 9 key P's,:
1. Passwords -This is in the Be Internet Awesome lessons and we will cover it, but it is not really something we have our students do in school at the elementary level. SOOO many of the kids cannot remember their passwords even though they are based off of their student numbers. It is really a problem when you're trying to do a lesson with an online component. If they changed their passwords we would never be able to keep going on the lesson. I know that some people will say that then they just need to make up the lesson, but they are little kids and don't have study halls. The teachers don't have extra free periods to reteach during AND the after school bus service is not an option, especially for the primary students. So, in summary, I will teach it, but we don't really model it well in school. I know that I need to personally explore this more as well.
2. Private information -This was a big part of the Share with Care lessons and my students really got into it. There was a lot of discussion about what was okay to share and, assuming the students were paying attention, it was obvious how different people can view information as private or not. In general, I think the kids got the idea that it should be up to the person who's information it is to decide AND that the kids should be talking to their parents about what is okay with them to share. I integrated a whole discussion about identity theft in here and how horribly prevalent it is and that even infants are having their identity stolen.
3. Personal information and 4. Photographs: This was a big part of Share with Care, too. I even segued into how personal information can help a hacker to gain access to someone's accounts because too many people use personal details like children, pets, and favorites to create their passwords. We did not, however, get into the dangers of geotagging on the photos. In was interesting how the some of the students were upset about how many photos their parents (and particularly their moms) upload of them. Some of the kids had obviously told their moms to stop posting their photo even before the discussion and their mom ignored them. It really hit a nerve.
5. Property - I start teaching about Creative Commons searching in 2nd grade and repeat the lessons in our projects in 3rd, 4th, and 5th (and 6th, last year). We watch the Copyright video on BrainPOP to try to increase understanding of the topic. I know that they don't always do it, but they know how. I will say that I think that the kids are always so rushed to complete their assignments (because we push, push, push -at least in our school) that they take the easy way out.
6. Permission - I start citations in 2nd grade, too. I don't know what else to do. I will say that it is hard for the kids to do the online citations. Even the sites designed for citation, like Noodle Tools, are really complex for at least my elementary students. Now, many of my students are not as tech-savvy as many of the suburban students might be, but still. The citations in Destiny Quest and World Book are easy for them to create, copy and use, but creating an MLA citation for a web page is much harder.
7. Protection - As I said above, this was covered in our discussions ans everyone should know how much the students WANT to know it.
8. Professionalism - We have talked about the ramifications that posting without thinking could potentially have on their future. The situation with the VA governor provided an easy segue into that discussion because I could say to look at how much this has been covered in the media and no one ever expected anyone to find out because it was only in a print yearbook. I explained that what they post is never as private as they think, that companies constantly change the way their privacy settings work so you have to keep checking and that things online never go away. Some students definitely understood this especially when I pointed out the articles about students losing their admission to college based on their posts, like the They Loved Your G.P.A. Then They Saw Your Tweets and Harvard Rescinds Acceptances for At Least Ten Students for Obscene Memes articles.
9. Personal brand - This I haven't covered at all. I'm not sure that my students would get this yet. Does anyone have any ideas of covering this with elementary students?
I briefly looked at 8 digital skills we must teach our children. I haven't really considered covering the digital use or digital emotional intelligence topics with my students. I guess it is something to ponder, but there is so much in general to cover and I can't cover everything...
Finally, I like the list of Digital Citizenship Videos from Teaching Channel that is mentioned in the Digital Citizenship Week resources. I think I could find more here to add to my lessons, especially if there are shorter ones I could squeeze into the younger grades. Exploring them will take more time than I have now.
In short, there is always more to explore and consider about this topic and every week brings a new example to show to the students so it feels relevant.
Wow, you really dug into this topic. Thanks for sharing all your notes and observations.
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