Saturday, July 16, 2011

Tool #10 Digital Citizenship

I've taught Digital Citizenship for a couple of years now. Given what I've seen of some of the students Facebook posts I'd say I'm not always successful.  Even though 5th graders aren't supposed to have a Facebook Page, many of our students do.  10 year olds live in the moment and some of what they've posted is both poorly spelled and in very poor taste. 


1. Discuss at least three things you would want to make sure your students understand about being  good digital citizens.   I try to stress to the students that what they post on line isn't private in any sense of the word and I try to bring in real world examples.  Sadly, this isn't to difficult.  We try very hard to convince them them that "cutting and pasting" does not a paper make.  Lastly, we do our best to stamp out Cyber Bullying.    Given the recent posts about a Facebook page at one of our high schools I don't think we have a handle on this problem either. 
2. Share at least one of the resources mentioned above or on the Ed Tech website that you plan to use instructionally.   I've used the iSafe program as a jumping off place for my lessons but it's a bit to negative, the internet is the Big Bad Wolf for my taste.  I took the information presented in the program and created Flipchart which I've used for the past couple of years. 

3. Explain briefly how you would "teach" the idea of digital citizenship to your students The students and I both adore BrainPop and I've found their lessons to be both user friendly and through. BrainPop is incorporated in my FlipChart since the company is a partner with Promethean, who makes our ActivBoards. .

4. Explain briefly how you plan to share the idea of digital citizenship with your parents. That's a tricky one, since many of our parents don't speak English and don't have easy access to a home computer.  They have cell phones with internet but that's not the same as a computer (or an iPad) with a keyboard.  It's a subject we really need to broach this upcoming school year, especially since Cyber Bullying is becoming all to common.  We no longer have a Family Technology Night, but we could address it during Science Night, which also includes a heath fair.  That's when we get out biggest turnout of parents.  Perhaps some of the 4th Graders could create Glogs to accompany the 5th grade Glogster projects. 

No comments: