This week students will learn how to empathize with those who have received mean and hurtful messages and judge what it means to cross the line from harmless to harmful communication online. This lesson comes from Common Sense Media’s Digital Citizenship Unit 1, Lesson 3.

Students will play a quick game of Kahoot to demonstrate not everyone will react to a situation in the same way. In the game, students will assign an emotion from a list of four possibilities to the emoticons shown below.  From the responses, students will understand we should not discount how other people feel just because they do not feel the same way we do about a particular situation.

             

Students will watch the video posted here: https://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/lesson/power-words-4-5 together on the white board.  Students will answer the discussion questions listed below:

*What happened to Guts in the video? Why did playing the game upset him? How do you think Guts felt when he was called “slowpoke”, “weird”, and “dummy”?  How is getting called names online similar to getting called names in person? Have you ever seen an example of trash talking online?  What did you do? What would you do if it happened now?  What are the rules of STOP?  In your opinion, which step in most important?  How do you treat others online? Is it ever hard to remember that there’s another person on the other side of the screen?*

Students will stand on one side of the black tape line on the floor in the front of the room. They will imagine they are online and somebody sends them a message.  Students will stay where they are if the message is okay, they will move to the opposite side of the line if the message is not okay, and they will stand on the line if they are not sure.  Students will be presented with the phrases below for this activity:

• You are an idiot.
• I’m having a party and you’re not invited.
• I like your new haircut.
• You are really ugly.
• Thanks for the advice. Next time would you mind telling me in person rather than by texting?
• Did you finish your homework?
• Why is it taking you so long to finish it?
• You are such a freak.

As a class, students will see first hand examples of how powerful the choice of words can be from the Edmodo Chat Room groups:

Students will log in to their blog to post the STOP acronym from the video as a reminder of what they should do when they are faced with hurtful words online.

S-Step away

T-Tell a trusted adult

O-Okay sites first

P-Pause and think online

Students may use word art from http://cooltext.com to create their post.

Parents can download the family fact sheet from Common Sense Media here.

Common Sense Media is a wonderful resource for teachers, parents, and students.  The Cyberbullying section is full of information every teacher and parent should familiarize themselves with.  The site consists of 23 frequently asked questions, 10 articles, and 10 videos that will help anyone understand the issue we call cyberbullying. The website makes it easy for any teacher or parent to find information relevant to their situation in that it is searchable by the age of the child.  Be sure to check it out!

https://www.commonsensemedia.org/cyberbullying

This week 4th grade students will be introduced to symmetry by watching this video:

Students will then get with a partner and move to a table in the computer lab where a straight line has been drawn using a dry erase marker. One student will create a design with fractiles on one side of the line. The partner will complete the design on the other side of the line by mirroring the image to create one line of symmetry. The original creator will take a picture with an ipod and email the photo to themselves to post on their blog. Now the partner will create the design on one side of the line and let the other student complete the mirrored image. The original creator will snap a photo with an ipod and email that photo to themselves to post on their blog. The instructions for this lesson are posted in Edmodo with the accompanying tutorial video below.

 

This week, 3rd graders will be presented with Common Sense Media Lesson Unit 1, Lesson 2 Private and Personal Information. In this lesson, students will learn to think critically about the user information that some websites request or require in order to register. Students will understand the difference between private and personal information, distinguishing what is safe and unsafe to share online.
As a class, we will create an account on http://bookadventure.com to understand what information will be required. We will discuss the information that was shared in order to register for the site and discuss with a partner by using turn and talk whether the information that was shared was safe to share. Students will understand that personal information is generally safe to share, but private information is not. Students will then watch this video to learn the 10 things that are considered private information and should not be shared online without their parent or teacher’s permission.
http://www.iplayerhd.com/playerframe/progressive/6a62ae21-b866-4971-9473-b70ab7ff3b9b.aspx

Students will then log in to their Edmodo account to take a 15 item quiz by categorizing the 15 items as private or personal information.

Parents can download the Family tip sheet for Personal and Private Information by clicking on the link.

5th graders will be presented with Common Sense Media Lesson Unit 2, Lesson 3, You’ve Won a Prize. Students will understand the definition of spam and how to handle spam when they are confronted with it.  Students will compare spam to junk mail that comes in the mailbox.  Students will understand these important tips for dealing with spam:

*Don’t open messages from people you do not know.

*If you open a message by mistake, don’t click on links or download files.

*Never reply to emails or IMs from people you don’t know.

*Don’t reply to spam, even to tell the spammer not to send any more messages.

*Flag emails as “junk” or “spam”.

*Watch out for messages that ask for your private information.

*Tell an adult you trust about any messages that makes you uncomfortable or comes from someone you do not know.

Students will then read the following story independently and answer the 3 questions.  The story and questions will be posted in Edmodo in the WOLab Class of 2024 group.

***One day Charlie gets an email from an address he doesn’t know. In the Subject box it says “You’ve won a prize!” The message reads, “Congratulations! You’ve won a big prize! To claim your prize, click here.” There is no name at the end of the message.Charlie clicks on the link and sees a webpage advertising a face cream. He tries to close the page, but other advertising pages pop up for tooth-whitening and foot-odor products. Every time Charlie closes a page, another ad pops up. He can’t seem to get off the site.

1. What do you think Charlie thought when he got this email?
2. Why do you think Charlie opened the email?
3. Was it a good idea to click on the Web link? Why or why not?
4.  What should Charlie do next?***

Parents can download the Family tip sheet for You’ve Won a Prize by clicking on the link.

For the past two weeks Nurse Jones has been completing her mandatory vision and hearing screenings for all 3rd-5th grade students. To help accommodate her, the students have been enjoying the MakerSpace in the computer lab.  In the MakerSpace students are given the opportunity to choose how and what they will create.  I have students building simple Rube Goldberg machines with Hot Wheels and cups, making amazing creations out of playdoh, crafting a teepee village from straws and craft sticks, scripting puppet shows, learning about circuits with Little Bits, engineering balloon powered cars with Legos, discovering the art of stop motion with playdoh and Legos, fashioning jewelry from WonderBands, discovering the art of origami, and designing sculptures in Tinkercad and then watching their creations come to life on the MakerBot 3d printer.

This week all students in technology will participate in Common Sense Media, Unit 3, Lesson 4 What’s Cyberbullying.  Students will compare and contrast Bullying to Cyberbullying by dragging the phrases from the side to the area on the Venn diagram it belongs.  This will be a whole group activity done at the front of the room using the projector.

After visualizing the similarities and differences, students will begin to understand why cyberbullying is so much more devastating to the victim.  Because of the effects on the victim, some states have made cyberbullying a criminal offense.

Students will then log in to Edmodo on their computer to read this scenario from the Common Sense Media lesson.

and answer a question posted to each grade level group shown below.

 

 

Families can find out more by going over this Family Fact Sheet.

 

 

This week students learned about plagiarism from Commons Sense Media’s Digital Citizen unit.  The lesson was adapted from Unit 1, Lesson 5 titled Whose Is It, Anyway? Students learned about plagiarism and its consequences through an activity where they voted with their feet.  Students were given four different scenarios where they had to vote “Okay” or “No Way” and explain why they voted the way they did.

Students were presented with the four scenarios below.  If they believed it is okay, they moved to the left side of the room; if they believed it is no way, they moved  to the right side of the room.

Scene 1:  David had basketball practice last night and didn’t have time to do his homework.  Justin offers to let him copy his, and sends it to David in an email.

Scene 2: Manny has to write a paragraph about water resources for science.  He finds a paragraph on a website that is just right.  Manny copies it in his own handwriting.

Scene 3: Samantha copies a webpage into her book report and adds her own first sentence.

Scene 4:  Ming spends a lot of time on the Web.  She finds a great drawing on a site.  She prints it for the cover of her social studies report and gives credit to the illustrator in her report.

After much discussion, students logged in to the Common Sense Media’s Digital Passport to create a music video through the activity Mix and Mash.  The activity allowed students to understand how to give credit when using someone else’s creative work.  To continue the discussion at home, parents may want to download the fact sheet “Respecting Creative Work” from Common Sense Media.

This week third graders are being introduced to digital citizenship and fourth and fifth graders are reviewing digital citizenship through Common Sense Media’s lesson titled “Super Digital Citizen.”  Common Sense Media is a wonderful resource for parents and teachers regarding the use of technology and how to understand and manage its impact on students. Students watched the video embedded below to begin a conversation about how to be a Super Digital Citizen.

After the discussion, students logged in to their blogs to create a post titled Super Digital Citizen. In the blog post, students gave their superhero a name and described their superhero’s super power. Students accessed the program Tuxpaint to draw a picture of their superhero. After screen capturing the image, students added it to their post.  Here is just one example:

Be sure to check out your child’s blog and ask them about their character’s superpower. You may also be interested in this fact sheet from Common Sense Media.
super-digital-citizen-family-tip-sheet

Well, here it is, Sunday night before my second week of school.  I set myself a personal goal to blog at least weekly.  I am at the sunset of my deadline for this week and not really feeling motivated to write a post.  (To be honest, “writing” is not my thing, so I do not see the motivation aspect changing at all, but I DID make a personal goal and hate to renege on it so early in the year. I did not have students in technology last week due to the fact I was training a new teacher in the Healthy Bodies/Ready Bodies Lab, so what would I write about anyway?  Then I came across on my computer desktop a quick video I made before school started of my new classroom set-up and thought, woolah, there is my post for the week.  So…here it is. I apologize in advance for the shaky quality.

Here is a better look at my favorite part of the room:

Do you need caffeine? No, I am not talking about the kind that comes from a coffee bean. The one I am referring to is the macbook app that keeps your screen from going to sleep. I was very impressed with the third grade teachers last night at our Meet the Teacher event as they were all projecting their instructions directed to parents from their computers onto their whiteboard. When they noticed before the event that their screen would go blank (from going into sleep mode), they installed the Caffeine app. Once enabled, it kept their image projected for the entire hour. I have been in workshops before where the presenter is in the uncomfortable position of having to “wake up” their screen. This is a great solution to that problem. Once installed, a coffee cup icon will appear in the menu bar. Clicking on it enables the app to keep your computer from going into sleep mode. Clicking again turns it off. The app can also be customized.