Digital Citizenship Week (great resources)

Next week (October 14-18) is Digital Citizenship Week.  While it's a bit of a funny week for us with testing and conferences, it's a reminder that we can all play a part in helping students become good digital citizens.  And of course, you can celebrate Digital Citizenship Week any time!

There are many excellent resources at Common Sense Education.  What's great about them is that they're well thought out, produced, and organized; all you have to do it follow the provided lesson plan.

If you've used Common Sense curriculum resources before, you should now that they've recently been updated.

Take a look at the lessons here:
https://www.commonsense.org/education/digital-citizenship/curriculum?grades=9,10,11,12

And here are short videos (with accompanying questions for discussion) that you can play and discuss in a 15-minute window.
https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/5-videos-that-get-teens-thinking-critically-about-media

I'm happy to help you integrate these materials.  Please just let me know.
And also please let me know what you're doing in your classes around digital citizenship so we can share it out.

Thanks for reading.

New CVSD Digital Learning Site

Have you checked out the new CVSD site for Digital Learning?  We've combined resources for various education tech tools and resources. There is also a page specific for CVU.  I will continue adding to that, but you can still search the blog in the meantime.

Digital Citizenship Flipgrid

Teachers,
Did you see Bonnie Birdsall's message about doing a Digitial Citizenship Flipgrid?  Gary and I are happy to help with this.  If you've never used FlipGrid before, I recommend you try it!  It's a great way to have group conversations. 

Come on down to 118 and we'll set you up.  Of let me know a good time for me to come to you.

Common Sense Education

I was just reviewing some software that a teacher is investigating for game design and it reminded me of what a valuable resource Common Sense Education is. Common Sense Education is a part of commonsense.org, "... the nation's leading nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in the 21st century." These are the same people who bring us Common Sense Media and have excellent resources on digital citizenship that I've written about before.

If you don't have Common Sense bookmarked, I recommend you do so.  It's an invaluable resource. 

Also, a reminder that you don't need to do all the research yourself.  If you're looking for an app, extension, or other software for your classes, please let me help.  And if you've found something already that you'd like to use, a reminder to check for it on the Tech Request Approvals (and submit it if it's not already there).

It's Digital Citizenship Week!

Digital Citizenship Week is an opportunity to take stock of how safely, responsibly, and respectfully we are using technology.

Check out these resources from Common Sense Media, including a pledge that teachers and students can take.

Image from Common Sense Media

Report on Media Use

The average teen uses 9 hours of media a day.

Common Sense Media (an excellent resource for issues around kids' media use and digital citizenship) just released a study on how students aged 8-18 use media.  The results are summarized in the infographic below.  Worth reading.  The full report is available here.

It's Digital Citizenship Week!

Dear Teachers,

Welcome to Digital Citizenship Week.  It's a good reminder to keep talking about digital citizenship issues with your students.

Even a simple discussion around responsible technology use, including online identity and etiquette, cyberbullying and intellectual Property can go a long way.

Looking for resources?  Check out these from Common Sense Media.  Or follow the hashtag #HaveTheTalk on Twitter and Facebook.