Tuesday 20 November 2012

Digital Citizenship

We have been discussing how important it is to be a responsible user of technology - especially when online. I decided to show a video created by Common Sense Media. I asked students to specifically watch the different images featured in the video.


Afterwards, we discussed how the "fingerprint" image makes us realize that everyone is unique and leaves a mark when online. The "football stadium" image is a great reminder that the Internet is a massive public space. The "permanent marker" image shows that you need to be careful what you post online because it is very hard to take something down. Finally, the "lighthouse" image reveals how easy it is for someone to search for information about you!

That's exactly what I wanted students to think about. What online information did they want connected to their names 10 - 15 years from now? Students created a list of ideas at school and they also talked to their parents about it at home. 

We used Tagxedo to put our key words into a fancy footprint picture. Here is one example:


Students will be posting their Tagxedo creations in their own blogs. We also typed up our ideas and created a footprint using fancy lettering and pencil crayons. You can see that I told my students to dream big!

This is an example of one student's list.
This is the complete piece.
Finally, we discussed the entire experience together and created a shared piece of writing for our bulletin board outside of our classroom.


This is one of our bulletin boards. We have another one on the opposite side of the hallway.







10 comments:

  1. I want to thank you for sharing you approach to teaching this important lesson. By having students create their own footprint, they were forced to examine their opinions about what kinds of personal information should be posted online. Drawing their own physical footprint really sends home the message that once something is posted online, it can never be deleted. I particularly enjoyed your example list of the kinds of things student's wanted linked to their names. This looks like it was a lot of fun for everyone!

    Julia @ WeInspireFutures.com

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  2. Brilliant! Thank you, you have inspired me!

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  3. Thank you for your great ideas!

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  4. Thanks so much for sharing this creative lesson!

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  5. Thanks for sharing this lesson! This has made me think about my digital footprint as I am preparing this lesson for my class.

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  6. What a wonderful way to show what a Digital Footprint is. I think I will have to do something like this with my older students (4th & 5th Graders).

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  7. Can you share the footprint that you used for the art project? Awesome idea!~

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  8. Thank you. I am excited to use this with my 5th grade computer lab this year. We have always done a paw print pledge and the students pledged to follow the rules of Digital citizenship that they learned but this will make for a more thoughtful project and a more interesting hall way decor for me.

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