Tool #10

There are a few things that I want my students to understand about being good digital citizens:


1)  Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see (or in this case, read, see, and hear).  This old adage that my grandfather taught me still holds true.  They need to confirm information by looking at multiple sources in order to verify it and/or look at the source of the website itself, like they taught us to do at the staff development in August.


2)  Students cannot just use the first resource that they come to just because they want to get something over with.  They need to look at multiple sources.


3)  Students need to see models of good researching, have healthy skepticism, and follow-up with something every time they hear something (I can use the erroneous e-mails I receive and snopes.com as an example of this)


One of the resources that I plan to use instructionally is digitalcitizenship.net.  On this website, I found a great lesson entitled Foundational Lesson Plan #2--Digital Compass.


In it, you give each classroom group a "digital compass" that says things like "I don't know if it's right or wrong" and "Depends on the situation".  Then you give each group a list of scenarios and they have to discuss the right, wrong, etc. of each "digital situation".  Here's an example of one of the scenarios: 


Scenario #5 – An hour before class, a student remembers that a writing assignment is due. The
student goes to the library, logs on to a website, and copies/pastes information without giving
credit to the authors. Is using Internet materials without giving credit to the authors wrong?


I would use technology to teach it.  Not only would I go over the ethical dilemmas in the digital compass, but I would also use the movies on Brainpop to really drive the point home.  I want them to be savvy. In our persuasion unit, we discuss the importance of knowing about persuasion  techniques so that students will know when someone is trying to use those same techniques on them and they won't be taken in. Similarly, I would like them to see the value of healthy skepticism to make them smarter and savvier in general.  


There is another way I  use to drive this point home.  I use an article from The Houston Chronicle from Rick Casey entitled "Incredible Lawsuit Tales" about myths that have been circulating the internet since e-mail forwards became popular.  In it, Casey tells all of these so-called "true stories" and talks about how they are just myths.  Most of the students have heard at least one of these stories and have taken them as gospel.


I would also like the parents to know the pitfalls of believing everything they read by showing them these resources at Open House.  For example, I could show them the martinlutherking.org website that was actually created by white supremacists!!  I can also post these resources on my website.  If the parents know how to research, they will in turn reinforce the message to the students.