I think with anything you are working with or presenting to students, you need to provide procedures, rules, and regulations along with the consequences of not following them. I think that that the students should know that with the permission to use the computers and technology in your classroom that there will be a lot of programs that they will be engaged and they need to comply with those rules in order to be safe. My 3rd graders are coming in with their cell phones and have no idea to the true power that they have and teaching them about safety on the internet must be presented. I think if teachers find an exciting way to teach safety on the Internet, they will help make it clear to all students on how their digital footprint must be safeguarded at all times.
http://www.safekids.com/kids-rules-for-online-safety/
Safe Kids is a great website starter for people wanting to learn and teach students about Internet safety. The link above takes a Kids’ Rules for Online Safety. It would be a great introduction to students and I would teach this as a lesson and mission statement for students to recite and sign as a pledge to be safe on the Internet. Like Sarah Muthler stated in her article, “Online Safety: A Teacher’s Guide to Dealing with Cyberbullying, Sexting, and Student Privacy” (2015), “Schools can open conversations about online
safety so that student learn to set personal boundaries and feel more comfortable reporting incidents like bullying and harassment.” This website is a great way to start with students of all ages.
https://kids.usa.gove/online-safety/index.shtml
Kids.gov has some great information regarding Internet safety and offers links to other Internet safety links about cyberbulling and protecting their personal information and location. I think students will learn great information regarding how to be safe when it comes to technology not only at school but at home. I think as students start using more educational sites to communicate teachers need to constantly reinforce constructive critique and work ethic of working with other students or commenting on students’ boards and work sites. Students need to be consistently reminded of netiquette so they will not be mistaken for a cyberbully.
http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk/8_10/cybercafe/Cyber-Cafe-Base/
This is a website activity for students to practice with scenarios of Internet safety where they have to pick the best outcome for emails, sharing information and chatting with people. It is actually a UK based website but the sessions are interactive and some things items are read to the students. I think this is a great assessment tool for students to show if they understand the importance of knowing the safety rules for the Internet.
http://www.educational-freeware.com/news/internet-safety.aspx
I picked a couple from this website but I thought it would be remiss of me not to mention how I found so many of these great websites. This is a link to the article that discusses websites great for teaching and reinforcing the rules of the Internet and the safety and procedures for practicing safe Internet use. I think the students of all ages would be great to use the activities involved to show them that the Internet is way more than YouTube videos and everyone out there in cyberworld may not have good intentions.
Tools of the Future
Tool of the Future Gooru.org
Okay so I went ahead and tried out the Gooru.org site suggested by our professor to give it a test drive. I really liked the website and that it allows you to create classes and search a database of various tasks in all subjects. It allows for teachers to use and create sites that are great for students to learn from and stay engaged during their computer time. As we already know that education is moving towards more rigorous tasks that are engaging, teachers have to find new ways to present information that has become mundane especially if you are teaching it for maybe the 5th or 15th year in a row. I’m hoping to add it to my arsenal of technology to use with students.
I would like to use this to provide similar lessons to differentiate it for students for all levels and needs. It supports a blended learning model that a lot of schools are trying to adopt to provide various ways for students to learn a skill. I can do a similar lesson individualized for students with diverse learning needs and still teach the same objectives to the students without losing those students with regular education work. I think the future of the Internet is only about bigger and better. It is all about making the Internet easier to navigate without the floodgates of every article and website.
I think the advantages will be for the students, teachers and parents. I think the more technology that we all have access to will allow for more communication with the school and the parents. Parents and children will be able to learn together at home with homework tools and more information to access online. Teachers will love the reduction in paperwork regarding students turning in papers and projects online allowing teachers to have an easier way to submit feedback and assess students learning and to reteach or extend lessons more easily and differentiated to that students’ academic needs and learning styles.
Of course the disadvantage is not all students have the access to 1:1 ratio of technology for every student. For example, my school only has two computer labs and one laptop cart for a little over 300 students. I attempt to use the labs as much as possible but as more teachers want to work with the computers, that becomes scheduling issues that need to be worked out.
References
What is Web 3.0 and How Might it Affect Education? (n.d.). Retrieved April 14, 2016, from https://ed4online.com/blog/what-web-30-and-how-might-it-affect-education
Online Safety: A Teacher's Guide to Dealing with Cyberbullying, Sexting, and Student Privacy. (n.d.). Retrieved April 14, 2016, from http://www.edudemic.com/the-teachers-guide-to-keeping-students-safe-online/