Standard 4.2
When it comes to making our students better digital citizens, I think that our schools are failing. To satisfy this standard I chose my internet safety blog that was written for the Internet Tools course. I wrote this blog with the purpose of stating a real problem that our young students are being dealt, and researching ways to bring this problem to the forefront. Included with the problem, I blogged about ways to educate our youth of appropriate uses of technology. Internet use is a huge safety concern for schools and I feel like this blog post is a great way to show schools and students how important it is. The sites that I researched not only dealt with internet safety but the effective use of technology. Our students misuse technology on a daily basis and we need to help combat this in our schools. I created this blog on my own with the help of questions to guide my research and writing.
While researching internet safety I was able to find some digital tools to assist me in helping teach not only students but also faculty the ills of the internet and technology. I was able to find 3 digital tools to help teach students acceptable use and help make them better digital citizens. The first site I found is a site that shows students real life stories of how unacceptable use of the internet can lead to problems. The sites name is http://www.netsmartz.org/RealLifeStories and deals with real life stories of teenagers’ issues with not using the internet properly. One story is of a young man who gets involved in a website rating girls at his school. This young man thought it was ok until this affected him personally when his sister was put on the site. He learned a lesson of how this can be detrimental to his friends and family. This site is a one stop shop for videos and information about internet safety. The next site is geared more towards engaging students through cartoons and video and provides a great deal of resources like the one above. http://www.brainpopjr.com/artsandtechnology/technology/internetsafety/. Brainpop Jr is geared for a younger group of students but is still very effective to show students how to be good digital citizens. This site not only shows videos but also has quizzes and games. The last site I researched is one that I use daily in my own classroom and helps model effective use. The site is named Safeshare.tv. With this site teachers are able to show videos from YouTube that may have commercials and inappropriate ads. After writing this blog I was able to show what I had written about. I was able to briefly show fellow teachers and my principal what I had written. This was great for our computer/business teachers to use in their classes with incoming freshman. In the upcoming school year, I plan to make these sites and videos part of my first week of instruction. By showing these videos and sites students will know I expect them to use technology carefully and respectfully. With these sites I was able to show healthy use of technology because of the harms that it can cause to you and your family. Just as the young man above, some of my kids were able to associate these videos to experiences they already have of misuse. With these presentations I spent time talking to students about the proper ways to research and then cite resources they are going to use in their writing. Throughout the year we have written a good deal and modeling the information early on exposed students to how to properly give credit to those who deserve it. Included in the plagiarism discussion and use of citations, was the effective use of copyright laws and how this pertains to the use of images and videos online. This goes along with plagiarism, because students were shocked to find out that photos and videos used in their presentations were used illegally. I was able to show students a site called creative commons where they could use images legally in the future.
I learned that inappropriate internet is going unnoticed and most adults are assuming that young adults know how to use technology properly once they get to high school. We cannot assume that our counterparts at the junior high are teaching our upcoming and current students how to properly use the technology we are implementing at the High School. These attitudes and responsibilities should be something that is repeated over and over to make sure students are safe and know how to respect technology so that it does not harm them. I also learned that with the way our curriculum is and the standards that need to be covered, our computer teachers cannot always cover this content. So all teachers must help out with this large task. If I could change anything I would make a better presentation to showing more data from the jr high and middle school. When students have internet safety training early, they will be better prepared to use technology safely. The whole school will be improved because our student body will be better educated about the subject. Students will know how to handle situations better when technology is improperly used. This can be assessed by classroom observations and observations of student use.
While researching internet safety I was able to find some digital tools to assist me in helping teach not only students but also faculty the ills of the internet and technology. I was able to find 3 digital tools to help teach students acceptable use and help make them better digital citizens. The first site I found is a site that shows students real life stories of how unacceptable use of the internet can lead to problems. The sites name is http://www.netsmartz.org/RealLifeStories and deals with real life stories of teenagers’ issues with not using the internet properly. One story is of a young man who gets involved in a website rating girls at his school. This young man thought it was ok until this affected him personally when his sister was put on the site. He learned a lesson of how this can be detrimental to his friends and family. This site is a one stop shop for videos and information about internet safety. The next site is geared more towards engaging students through cartoons and video and provides a great deal of resources like the one above. http://www.brainpopjr.com/artsandtechnology/technology/internetsafety/. Brainpop Jr is geared for a younger group of students but is still very effective to show students how to be good digital citizens. This site not only shows videos but also has quizzes and games. The last site I researched is one that I use daily in my own classroom and helps model effective use. The site is named Safeshare.tv. With this site teachers are able to show videos from YouTube that may have commercials and inappropriate ads. After writing this blog I was able to show what I had written about. I was able to briefly show fellow teachers and my principal what I had written. This was great for our computer/business teachers to use in their classes with incoming freshman. In the upcoming school year, I plan to make these sites and videos part of my first week of instruction. By showing these videos and sites students will know I expect them to use technology carefully and respectfully. With these sites I was able to show healthy use of technology because of the harms that it can cause to you and your family. Just as the young man above, some of my kids were able to associate these videos to experiences they already have of misuse. With these presentations I spent time talking to students about the proper ways to research and then cite resources they are going to use in their writing. Throughout the year we have written a good deal and modeling the information early on exposed students to how to properly give credit to those who deserve it. Included in the plagiarism discussion and use of citations, was the effective use of copyright laws and how this pertains to the use of images and videos online. This goes along with plagiarism, because students were shocked to find out that photos and videos used in their presentations were used illegally. I was able to show students a site called creative commons where they could use images legally in the future.
I learned that inappropriate internet is going unnoticed and most adults are assuming that young adults know how to use technology properly once they get to high school. We cannot assume that our counterparts at the junior high are teaching our upcoming and current students how to properly use the technology we are implementing at the High School. These attitudes and responsibilities should be something that is repeated over and over to make sure students are safe and know how to respect technology so that it does not harm them. I also learned that with the way our curriculum is and the standards that need to be covered, our computer teachers cannot always cover this content. So all teachers must help out with this large task. If I could change anything I would make a better presentation to showing more data from the jr high and middle school. When students have internet safety training early, they will be better prepared to use technology safely. The whole school will be improved because our student body will be better educated about the subject. Students will know how to handle situations better when technology is improperly used. This can be assessed by classroom observations and observations of student use.
blog_post_internet_safety.docx | |
File Size: | 13 kb |
File Type: | docx |