In order to carry out my GAME plan, I need to spend time researching available curriculum that focuses on Internet safety. Even though my students grumbled about participating in our school wide Internet safety activity, I think they all benefited. The activity that we participated in was good, but a little elementary for 8th grade students. I would like to find some resources and lessons that are geared toward middle school students. I would also like to invite a representative from the police department to speak to my students. Listening to an expert describe the potential dangers of the Internet will have a powerful impact on students.
In order to implement my “student expert” plan, I need to gather additional information on our district technology policies. I need to clarify whether students are allowed to troubleshoot different issues on another student’s computer. My goal is for these “student experts” to help troubleshoot problems when our technology support staff is not available. There are days when we spend a good deal of class time trying to troubleshoot some basic computer problems including trouble logging in, saving to the server, adding printers, updating software, etc. Also, I would need to find out who would be willing to train these “experts” and when the training would take place. It seems like a great idea, but I need to gather more information before I can implement it.
Currently I have not had the opportunity to put these plans into motion. In my classes I have continued to focus on helping my students to locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of sources. My students have been diligently conducting research to complete their Illinois History Fair papers and projects. To do this effectively, I have been guiding my students through the process of locating reliable and valid sources on the Internet as well as teaching them how to properly take notes to avoid plagiarism. This process is extremely important and time consuming.
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These are very important internet skills. I have students in high school who do not know how to find a reliable resource and they are 17 and 18 years old. Students in high school can not figure out how they get caught every single time with plagerism. They have no idea what it is and how serious the consequences could be.
ReplyDeleteJodi,
ReplyDeleteI agree that "listening to an expert describe the potential dangers of the Internet will have a powerful impact on students". We recently had a guest at our school speaking on this matter to all of our High School students. We have requested to take this one step further and hold a similar event with parents to help them become aware of the corresponding benefits and dangers.
Miriam
It is great to get parents involved. Students often tell their parents a half version of the story pr they don't inform them at all. Although there are many very aware parents out there, you still come across parents who have no idea about the dangers of the internet.
ReplyDeleteJodi, it is important for students to learn how to safely use the Internet. This means knowing how to conduct a reliable search for information, how to determine whether or not the resource is biased, how to locate the author, and so much more. Having a police officer speak to the students about internet safety is a great idea and an important one too. Since your students are conducting research for their History Day projects, it is extremely important for them to understand what plagiarism is. They need to learn how to site sources and how to summarize and not just simply "cut and paste."
ReplyDelete