Internet Safety and Digital Citizenship

Investigation:

Guiding Question: How can I make others in my community aware of the importance of being a conscientious digital citizen and behaving appropriately when using technology and online resources?

Internet safety is a very serious problem affecting people from all over the world. The internet is a great invention, helping us communicate limitless, find answers and have fun. But everything has a flaw. Although compared to a wonderland that provides homework, is also very unsafe, especially for children and young adults, who have just started discovering it. With lack of knowledge and responsibility, new users are endangered. Our objective is to learn and teach the four most important topics regarding internet safety and digital citizenship. We will then pick one to make a Wix presentation on it and show it to the 6^th graders, who just got their own laptops from school. They are all enumerated and explained below:



Design specification 

• lesson should be between 30-40 min long
• you should use at least 2 different teaching strategies
• should be age appropriate
• fun and educational

Possible Teaching Techniques:

1. Video
2. Online Survey to see what they know or what they don't.
3. Prezi/Wix/Glogster/Powepoint
4. Interview on what they know
5. Mini Quiz
6. Make Posters
7. Make mini-plays
8. Interactive online program
9. Play educational games

Testing Techniques:

1. Feedback Sheets
2. Short recap after lesson ended to see what children understood
3. Test it on our peers first
4. Ask teachers for their opinion and advice
5. Send out the online survey again to see if their answers have developed.

Safety and Security Online: 

When it comes to internet safety, younglings should be very careful in order to fully protect themselves. You shouldn’t share passwords, addresses or any valuable information that can be used against you. By giving that information you can be stalked, hacked and more, therefore it’s very dangerous. You should know if a website is safe so it won’t steal your information. You can check that by seeing whether it has a padlock next to the web address. Be careful when buying things online! Your money is very important and might be stolen if the website is a scam or not secure.

Cyber Bullying: 

Cyber bullying is a very serious topic although many people take it as a joke. Many people are affected by it. If you don’t know, well it’s when a person is bullied (harassed) online by another one. What people don’t know is that it still breaks hearts. People cyber bully because it’s easier than ganging up on a person in real life. If a person is being cyber bullied they should report the bully to a teacher, a parent or the website you are using. You can also block them on the social network that they are using.

Digital Etiquette: 

Digital etiquette is the way one acts and talks to other people on the internet. If you aren’t sure what is acceptable, you should follow the proverb “Treat the others the way you want to be treated,” that will guarantee you a good digital etiquette. Treat people with respect and don’t say anything you wouldn’t have the courage to say in real life. Cyber bullying on the other hand, is an example of bad etiquette. Remember, it’s not only the way you speak, but also what you do. Copying or downloading movies illegally is considered bad etiquette as well.

Search Strategies, Plagiarism and Website Credibility: 

Let’s start with plagiarism. It is when you steal one’s work off the internet by copy pasting and pretend it is yours. It seems easy and innocent but the consequences are massive. You can be kicked out of college and you can lose your job, so plagiarism isn’t a joke at all. As mentioned before, website credibility is very important as well. You don’t want your money or information stolen and used against you. If you feel suspicious and the website doesn’t give enough information, doesn’t have a lock sign next to the URL and just by appearance, it doesn’t seem safe, don’t use it. When it comes to search strategies this template should be self explanatory:

Operator	Description	Example
	use a keyword or idea, be specific	wildflower
	use a phrase, question, or string of ideas.	growing wildflower*
	use capitals only for proper nouns. Avoid plurals.	Indiana
AND, +, &	include both words	sand AND sculpture
OR, |	include either word	ice OR sand AND sculpture
NOT, -	exclude this word	ice NOT sand AND sculpture
AND NOT, !	all, but this word	weed AND NOT marijuana
NEAR, ~	similiar to this word, good for misspellings	NEAR sculpture
*	wildcard, include plurals and close matches	sculpt*
" "	looks for things in quotations	"statue of liberty"
use lowercase letters	upper case can limit your search	"statue of liberty"
title:, t:	to find the word in the title of the page	title: sand sculpture
url:, u:	the word in URL	u: eduscapes

Bibliography:
"Safety and Security Online." Cyber Smart Curriculum. Common Sense Media. Web. 27 Sept. 2011. <http://cybersmartcurriculum.org/>.
"Search Strategies." EduScapes: A Site for Life-long Learners. Web. 27 Sept. 2011. <http://eduscapes.com/tap/topic74.htm>.
"BrainPOP | Cyberbullying." BrainPOP - Animated Educational Site for Kids - Science, Social Studies, English, Math, Arts. Web. 27 Sept. 2011. <http://www.brainpop.com/technology/computersandinternet/cyberbullying/>.

Design Cycle Presentation

http://www.wix.com/skrstajic/design-cycle