One of the first activities that the Plug Me In crew is going to complete is an exploration of Internet safety designed to spotlight sites that are doing a terrific job keeping kids safe—and sites that are doing a poor job at keeping kids safe!
Here’s the activity, in case you’re interested in using it:
Rock on,
Bam Bam Bigelow
Add comment October 29th, 2007
The single most important lesson for digital kids to learn is how to keep safe while exploring online. While the Internet is full of incredibly cool tools that can help us to communicate and to collaborate, it can also have dark corners that you’ll want to avoid. Before becoming a digital all-star, you must read and agree to follow these Internet safety tips created by Childnet International and retrieved on October 29, 2007:
Keep it Private: When you are chatting to people or posting things online, make sure you keep your own and other people’s personal information private. If you have created your own online space, profile or website, make sure it is set to private so that you can control who can view your thoughts, ideas, images and videos. Bear in mind that future academic institutions and employers may search for you online to see if you are the right person for them.
Keep it Cool: If you or someone you know is being bullied online or via a mobile phone, you have a right not to have to deal with it on your own. It is important you save the messages or conversations and show an adult you can trust to help to resolve the situation.
Keep it Legal: Be aware of the legal consequences of your online activities. Illegal activities include downloading copyrighted music or film and harassing other people online. You are not anonymous online and things can get traced back to you.
Keep in Mind: Not everything you see or everyone you meet online is reliable. People that you’ve only met online are still strangers no matter how friendly they are. Because meeting up with these people can be dangerous, never do it without your parents present! Bringing a friend only puts them in danger too.
Keep in Control: If you have met someone online and conversations with that person are making you feel uncomfortable, tell an adult you trust! All such incidents can be dangerous and should be taken very seriously.
Keep Your Mates Safe: Think before you post a picture or a video of your friends. Once you have posted a picture, you have lost control of it and it could easily be copied, changed or used elsewhere online. Keep your mates safe by never posting pictures of them without their permission.
Add comment October 29th, 2007
One of the neatest–and easiest—tools to use online is Trailfire, which allows users to create annotated collections of websites that viewers can navigate through in order from beginning to end. By creating trails, you can introduce others to the information that you are studying and the ideas that are shaping your thinking.
Trailfire is a great way to begin organizing the thousands of websites that you stumble across every day while exploring your world. It can be used by teachers to guide students through research projects or by students as products for projects. Check out this sample trail, which introduces users to the key elements of staying safe while online:
http://www.trailfire.com/plugmein/trails/47114
Once you’re ready to create your own trail, this template might be helpful as you’re planning:
If you create any trails, be sure to leave us a comment with the address! We’d love to check out what it is that you find interesting online.
Rock on,
Bam Bam Bigelow
Add comment October 29th, 2007
Nicholas Negroponte of Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Media Lab once wrote, “One of the saddest but most common conditions in elementary school computer labs (when they exist in the developing world), is the children are being trained to use Word, Excel and PowerPoint. I consider that criminal, because children should be making things, communicating, exploring, sharing, not running office automation tools.”
The fact of the matter is that children ARE making things, communicating, exploring and sharing online—They’re just not doing any of it at school!
Check this out:
Download Video: Posted by mjohnson at TeacherTube.com.
Despite being driven by digital tools, students are unplugged as soon as they walk through the classroom door. They spend hours completely bored, divorced from the powerful tools that they happily return to as soon as they step off of the school bus. They are bloggers and moviemakers. They text and IM. They are as comfortable in digital conversations as they are when sitting face-to-face. Technology has always served as a motivator for today’s child—yet it is a motivator that many school teachers continue to ignore.
Plug Me In hopes to change all of that. We are a group of highly motivated kids led by a tech-driven teacher who are planning to document our experiences with technology. We want to share our thoughts about why technology matters, reflect on the tools that we think are the most valuable, and give our readers examples of how technology can be incorporated into the classroom.
With luck, you’ll learn something new from us.
Either way, we’re going to have a heck of a time learning together!
Signed,
Bam Bam Bigelow….Teacher/Sponsor of Plug Me In
Add comment October 28th, 2007
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