Hold On Tight Here I Go!
Marisabel's Blog
Teaching 4th graders Digital Citizenship as it relates to digital communication.My fourth graders love music, video games and always enjoy using their Chromebooks in class to learn. Following the important steps it takes to be a good Digital Citizen has not been easy. My students have one 35minute period each week dedicated to learning digital citizenship and it is not enough. All my students signed an internet agreement at the beginning of the school year that covered all the do's and don't's. Before I even realized most of my students had broken their contract. Just as my students sometimes don't realize what they are doing has consequences, I hadn't realized the dangers of them altering the settings for their individual Chromebooks could also cause issues with the effectiveness of their device. Common Sense Media, Google's Be Internet Awesome, Edutopia, KQED and many other reputable internet websites have made it easy and fun to teach students about the importance of internet safety.
At this point in the school year we are getting ready to start doing research on the internet for Social Studies. It is essential that we use our time productively because as we all know time is a precious commodity. I plan on using Common Sense Media's Search Shark game along with Choosito to teach my students how to know which keywords will give them the best search result. Because my students don't get enough time to effectively cover all the important content areas of Digital Citizenship, I plan on allowing my students play time on all the different games available in the interactive section of the Common Sense curriculum called Digital Passport. By doing this I will be able to review and reflect with my students about the issues they are dealing with on a daily basis. I know some of my students have phones and computers at home but I like the idea of the "stand up-sit down" survey to get a true idea of how your students use the internet on their phones and on their computers at home. E-volve could serve as an extension of the Second Step curriculum we use to teach students about Bullying. Cyberbullying and bullying is a common occurrence in the fourth grade. My students become aware during community circle and discussions that we are all affected and that it is important to talk about the issues we face and find solutions. My students also use Writer's Universe an online extension of our Benchmark Advance curriculum where they can chat with their peers and give feedback on each others work. Share Jumper and Mix-n-Match also part of the Digital Passport curriculum will remind them that what you post on the internet will be read by others and that you must be careful about what you say because others will judge your person by the words you put out into cyberspace. Learning to be a good Digital Citizen is essential for our digital natives and all educators should make an effort to include internet safety in their curriculum.
4 Comments
Jose Cerda
2/11/2018 08:08:38 pm
Fun video! Very creative. It will be interesting to see how students react to different resources we use. I was also thinking about something to help with research and students identifying good sources. I'll have to look into those tools after you try them. You have some great ideas Marisabel, it will be good to hear how it goes after we try our lessons.
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Rian
2/12/2018 07:51:57 pm
You have some great ideas, and I can't wait to hear how it progresses! I have never heard of Choosito, and am looking into it now. I tried the sit-down/stand-up method on my 6th graders and they loved it, hopefully yours will too!
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Marisabel, me encanto tu video! And you are right, many of these kids have broken their contracts already. I don't think they know what they are signing when they sign it? I think they just see the part of "sign here to let me use the internet". Those lessons in the digital passport and all those games look lots of fun but more important, very informative.
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Benjamin Scinto
2/12/2018 08:55:36 pm
Appreciate your comment about realizing all your students had broken the contract, which obviously renders the contract useless. Like other aspects of school discipline and policy if it doesn't hurt or isn't enforced it will quickly be disregarded. This is not meant to be critical but rather to acknowledge the extent of the problem. We try posture ourselves as omniscient adults but there are far too many bad examples for students to model after. Until students become fully aware of the consequences, as in the article about Harvard retracting admission, then we will be fighting an uphill battle
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Marisabel OlguinNVLA 4th Grade Dual Immersion Teacher at Napa Valley Language Academy Archives
June 2018
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