Cyber Safety Activities for Intermediate Students
I am starting my term with a cybersafety session with all my students. I have found some resources I like and the two classes who tried them seemed to get it and enjoy them so I thought I start a discussion on what might work for Intermediate Students.
- www.thinkuknow.co.uk - we have used age bracket 11 - 16 and topic "whwt can go wrong" to research potential pitfalls and solutions to moving around the cyberspace. I made it optional for students which points to look at, Sexting and Sexual Abuse were mentioned, some of my Y7s were uncomfortable with looking at the point so I gave them a quick summary on it verbally.
- www.bitstripsforschool.com - teachers can set up their classes on there and assign activities. Bitstrips offers a comic creation programme with various anti bullying activities to choose from, both in the real world and in cyber space.
- At home I have looked at some students' fb accounts just to see how good their privacy settings aree (public for most of them!). I have mentioned it at assembly (following advice from a VLN post I have offered I could post their pics at assembly as their were avialable for anyone to see anyway). I have also made a point of talking to various kids at play time to encourage them to use FB safely (they are almost all under age anyway!).
- Lastly, I have set out a competition to create a Cyber Safety poster for use at our school, with a Subway voucher for the best one from each class.
What have you found useful with your students?
Replies
- Allanah King (View all users posts) 02 May 2012 5:44pm ()
People have been using resources on our Cyber Safety Google Site that may be useful- esp the video prompts for discussion.
- Monika Kern (View all users posts) 02 May 2012 7:32pm ()
What a treasure trove of information on your site! I have bookmarked it, your delicious cyber safety resource collection as well. Would it be ok if I used parts if this in my work with staff and / or students? I am also starting a weekly post in our school newsletter, to keep parents up to date with what we're up to at school and how they can keep up with the tamariki - I can see lots of topics coming up simply from skim reading over your site! Many thanks for sharing!
- Tessa Gray (View all users posts) 02 May 2012 8:50pm ()
Hi Monika, this is a great start, there is a wealth of material available about digital citizenship for NZ teachers including Netsafe and MyLGP and in Enabling e-Learning. You might also like to bookmark an up-coming free online seminar hosted by Enabling e-Learning, Digital Citizenship: Using inquiry to build digital citizenship 6 June 3:30-4:30pm with Jenny Clarke, Wendy Koefed, Sean Lyons.
Last year I posted a sequence of three posts on the CORE blog about research around digital citizenship in schools, strategies to promote cybersafety and connections between school and home. http://blog.core-ed.org/blog/tag/digital-citizenship
In terms of my experience teaching students, I have presented a mini inquiry (a bit like you have) where I have introduced the concepts and issues associated with being online as well as defining the terminology of Digital citizenship. Andrew Churches makes some nice clarifications of the term @ http://edorigami.wikispaces.com/The+Digital+Citizen
Using videos in context, is a great way to ‘buffer’ the material shared. Here’s a Prezi show I’ve used with secondary students before. Some of this might appear confusing or out of context, please feel free to make comments for additional clarification.
I targeted the students online profile, asked them to search for themselves in Google and talked about the need to protect/respect themselves and others. This caused some drama and excitement in the room as the students realised they needed to have more control over their account/permissions in social networking places like Facebook. This resource has proven useful for students about the complexities of using Facebook @ http://ictpd-digital-citizenship-at-home.wikispaces.com/Facebook+identity
The lesson ended with a challenge to make a short radio advertisement to inform/warn others about what they have learned. More ideas for lesson scenarios for junior/middle/senior students can be found here @ http://ictpd-digital-citizenship-and-cybersafety.wikispaces.com/
Using games like Grapple is also a great interactive way to get students engage with real life scenarios (in this case, pop up windows) to encourage safety online.
Other educators have tackled this in their schools, so feel free to peruse their resources and stories in the VLN.
Other links:
Facebook threads in the VLN groups
How are your kids becoming 'successful digital citizens'? Whakatu Cluster schools discussion thread
- Allanah King (View all users posts) 03 May 2012 12:12am ()
Oh- Tessa's reply reminded me of
http://www.takethislollipop.com/
You log in with your Facebook account and it harvests your photos and mashes it into a REALLY scary video of what people could potentially find out about you via Facebook if your profile is not as locked down as you can make it.- and revised often for when Facebook changed its policies.
Definitely try it with your own Facebook profile first to decide if it would be suitable for the age and experiences of children you are teaching as it could be quite disturbing if viewed out of context.
Join this group to contribute to discussions.
