Good thing I don't believe in making New Year's Resolutions. I might have made one to blog more... and I'd be epically failing!!! I KNOW all 50 (I mean 40, since at least 10 of those views were probably me!) of my readers have been anxiously waiting for a computer lab update!
Picture this:
You are at the mall in the food court. Someone stands up with a poster size picture of the pizza they are about to eat and yell: "Best pizza ever!" #mallfood #greasy #lunchdate #shopping
You are in the audience at a school assembly; a girl is introduced and brought to the stage. She begins her speech by identifying the grungy girl sitting next to you. For the next 3 minutes she talks about how nasty, stupid, poor, dirty, and friendless the girl is! Everyone hears it. Everyone sees it. No one stops it!
Both of the above scenarios seem a little extreme and a little silly. But in reality, both things happen daily on social media! Let's be honest, at some point, you have posted a picture of food you've eaten! I know I have. As a society we crave "likes", "favorites", etc. We crave the high we get from comments or responses (both negative and positive). Social media such as Kik, Vine, Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, and Snapchat consume our society.
With the mass influx of social media, one might think our students should "know how to use it." The problem is, students know "how" to use it but they don't know etiquette for using it. Due to the social media craze, I feel it is important to include digital citizenship into my curriculum! Our school counselor is required and finds it important to include digital citizenship as well. We decided to join together and co-teach digital citizenship. It has been a blast and we have done something a little different with each grade level.
5th grade Digital citizenship lesson plans:
OBJECTIVE: When using social media, I can use online etiquette all the time. I can define and recognize cyberbullying.
Students were questioned about the social media they use daily and engaged through a discussion all the different ones they use. (I learned a few new ones)
We moved from the discussion into three different videos. The first video is a rap song about ten online rules. (Commonsense media.org is a great website for digital citizenship curriculum. If you haven't checked it out, you need to do so!!) - Over sharing rap
After they listened to the a funny video about how to behave online, we moved into a video that defined cyberbullying. It was very informative and told the kids how to respond to cyberbullying.
The final video we showed...well you just need to watch it: Talent Show - Lesson on cyberbullying. Between each video we had a discussion about the video and answered any questions the students might have.
The activity that followed the videos was fantastic! (Our counselor came up with it and made the cool items posted in the pictures below!) Students were divided into groups of 2-3 and given a card with one of the ten rules for online behavior. The kids had to come up with a skit explaining one of the different rules. Kids in the audience were required to identify which rule the skit represented. The goal was to make sure eight of the ten were correctly guessed on the first time. Not only did the kids have a good time, they practiced behaving properly online! We wrapped up the lesson with summaries of what they learned.
4th grade lesson plans:
OBJECTIVE: When using social media, I can use online etiquette all the time. I can define and recognize cyberbullying.
I'm sure you noticed the objective was the same for both fourth and fifth grade. In fact, the beginning of the lesson looked exactly the same...okay fine, I never do any two lessons EXACTLY the same, but you get the gist! We showed the same 3 videos and had the same general conversation.
However, we did change the activity.
The fourth graders were asked to use Kidpix to illustrate how to stay safe online. The pictures turned out really good. Here is my example for the class:
3rd grade lesson plans:
OBJECTIVE: When using social media, I can stay safe online and keep my computer protected from viruses. I can define and recognize cyberbullying.
We decided our third graders needed something a little different. Ginger found resources at Brainpopjr. We used their free online Internet safety curriculum to guide our lesson. Together we watched the online safety video. Following the video, we had a discussion of the different things the kids could do to stay safe online. As a class we took the quiz over the video. The follow-up activity was letting students write about how they stayed safe online.
At the end of class, the students watched the last video shown with the upper grades (Talent show: cyberbullying) and had a discussion comparing the video to cyberbullying. Some of our third grade classes were really moved by the video and what they saw.
2nd grade lesson plans:
OBJECTIVE: When using social media, I can use online etiquette all the time.
Really our 2nd grade lesson plans mocked the third grade lesson plans. We used the Brainpopjr and watched the same video. The activity at the end was also from the website but instead of writing, the students were asked to draw a safe website they like to visit.
At this time, we are not exactly sure what we will do with first grade or kindergarten, but their digital citizenship lessons will be coming up soon.
I've really enjoyed the digital citizenship units over the past month and have been left thinking about my online etiquette. I challenge you; watch the rap again and really think about the information you post online. Think about the next picture of someone else you post...did you get permission? If it were you, would you want it up? Before you post every 30 minutes, stop and think about the reader. Be wise when online and remember, you are an example for your students and kids. Social media can be great, but it can also rob us of human interaction causing us to crave more and more "likes!"
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