Digital Citizenship Resources

Living in a very digital world, it is essential that we are teaching our students what it means to be good "digital citizens".  There are many ways for our students to explore this and for us to teach, but certainly a great way for primary students is to give them a taste of what it means and then to use technology themselves to find out.

You Tube can be a great resource for some short videos to highlight the importance of digital citizenship and using the internet responsibly and safely.  In searching for some resources, I found a couple of great short clips that demonstrate this in simple terms. 

The first is a very short clip that demonstrates the responsible and ethical use of the web https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ab-MkHxYklg and is short to capture the attention of students and give them some information to undergo further research themselves.  The clip requires the student to be able to read the information as the audio is music only.  This would perhaps mean this type of clip would be best suited to middle to upper primary students.  The opportunity for further learning outcomes from this clip becomes large as students can explore for example: the 5W's, research kid-friendly websites and what is common about these, how to make their own clip on safe and responsible web use using a animation program such as Powtoon.

The second You Tube video is a short story of Russell who learns some lessons about copyright.  Russell goes to watch a new film that Lumpy is in but when he goes to see the film, Lumpy is in how way so he decides to video the film on his smartphone.  He is caught sharing this file online and discovers how this is not responsible use of the web. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InzDjH1-9Ns&index=5&list=PLD58EEA97BD9BBA14  This video starts off well aimed at lower to middle primary, however some of the jargon towards the end of the video perhaps gets a little more complex and better suited to upper primary and even lower secondary.  It is a little amusing and has rather annoying, catchy tunes that will keep the students attention and allow for good follow up on how to be responsible when using and sharing files.

Lastly is a great interactive site that helps students to decide what is responsible and safe use of the internet and how to determine if people are being your friend or bully online.  The interactive game "Pick your friends" allows the student to read questions and then determine whether an online character is in fact their friend or a cyberbully by asking them a set of private questions that only they would know.  It highlights the fact that there are people out there that pretend to be our friend, yet really are there to try and gather information about us that could be used for no good.  There are also other interactive games such as Crowd surfing, Drop Box and Flip and Fix that all that help students to identify what is safe use of the web.  https://esafety.gov.au/access/games_index.html

My Digital Footprint

Have you ever tried Googling yourself before?

Today I took a look at the digital footprint I have so far left behind and discovered more than you realise may in fact be out there for the world to see.  I also discovered how many other Megan Petersens there are in this world :).

For me I didn't have too many surprises of what came up.  The top find on google search was a link to a local newspaper from 2011 where I was opening my own gym.  It was a short little advertorial piece and displayed a photo of me in the gym.  I no longer own this, so it was a great little reminder of how wonderful that time of my life was.  https://issuu.com/riverlandweekly/docs/rw_162_feb_3_2011

The next was a little surprising as I didn't think my name would come up in a google search for this one.  https://www.facebook.com/renmarkwestpreschool/ A facebook page for the Renmark West Preschool came up with my name displayed in the google search description.  This would be because I liked or shared something from that page, which is reasonable to think of but I didn't think that would allow my name to pop up in a search.

The last website that my google search found of me was a Sporting stats website in a competition that I currently play.  My name featured on the scorers stats list (featuring quite near the bottom sadly) hence displayed in the search.http://websites.sportstg.com/comp_info.cgi?client=1-6101-123380-430525-0&a=STATS&sgroup=scoring&sgstat=Pts

Whilst all of these were no real surprises that my name featured, it did make me realise how much of our lives and about us is out there for people to know and learn.  I would like to think that this is all for the better, however I realistically know that in this technological age there are those who use information they find for purposes of their own gain.  It highlights how important being a global digital citizen is and practising and sharing safe, responsible and ethical use of the web.

Take the time to google yourself and see what people can find out about you!