Rationale: Digital Media Unit

I choose to approach as I was teaching a Gr. 7/8 Health class. In my school when I have taught health they meet once per cycle so one time every six days. A four class unit would take about a month to complete, so that is why I kept it to 4 classes. This is the first time that I have tried to use the blogger site and it seemed to have gone ok, not to hard to use. I tried to publish the pages in order that they would make sense to you, if i was doing this with my class i think they would have shown up in reverse order.

References

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net

https://sites.google.com/site/digitalcitizenshipdferris/

http://www.edudemic.com/15-resources-digital-citizenship-2014/

Video links are in the blog

Thanks

Josh

Introduction to Digital Media Citizenship

Digital Media Unit

Hello and welcome to our blog site on Digital Media and Citizenship.

In this unit we will explore some of the uses of digital media that can potentially assist you in your learning, as well as what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. We will explore these topics in a variety of ways and it will allow you to respond in a way that you feel is best for that par of the unit.

The blog we are going to be conducting this unit through can be found here.

To get started we are going to watch the following video together as a class:

http://www.teachertube.com/video/digital-citizenship-video-unit-1-402518

Part of being a good digital citizen is realizing what kind of digital footprint you are leaving on the web. Your job will be to pick one of the items (9 elements of digital footprint) that are listed in the video and post your thoughts on the blog. You can do this by logging in to the blog site using your Gmail or other email address and than posting your thoughts there. Please do this know before the video begins.

As a refresher the 9 elements of a digital footprint are as follows (from the video):

-       As a class we will quickly discuss what each of these means and expand where necessary on what was shown in the video.

1. Digital Access

2. Digital Commerce

3. Digital Communication

4. Digital Literacy

5. Digital Etiquette

6. Digital Law

7. Digital rights and responsibility

8. Digital health and wellness

9. Digital Security

Once again you will now have sometime to put some thoughts up on the blog on one of the areas that we just discussed.

I will give you about 10 min after the video to make your posts!!
Now to get ready for next class you can read or watch or check out the websites of at least two of the following links on topics that will be covered over the rest of the unit.

http://digitalcitizenship.net/Nine_Elements.html

http://www.2learn.ca/ydp/digcitizen.aspx – Watch the video 

http://www.cyberwise.org/#!digital-citizenship/c1t53 - Check out the video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCkTmZ0bF5Q&list=PLvzOwE5lWqhRhUa0Zet5__9yfLX8NRvb3&index=1 - What is Digital Citizenship

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mebKKLpYGkQ&list=PLvzOwE5lWqhRhUa0Zet5__9yfLX8NRvb3&index=12 - Netiquette - Playing nice on the Internet

Digital Law and Digital RIghts and Responsibilities

Lesson 2: Digital Law and Digital Rights and Responsibilities

To start off today’s lesson as a class we are going to explore one of the websites that was listed at the end of the last lesson.

It talks about the 9 elements of digital citizenship in a bit more length than we can compare what we see on the site to what you commented on in the last class.

http://www.digitalcitizenship.net

Now for the rest of today we will look at 2 of the elements listed in a bit more depth.

In today’s lesson we will examine the concepts of Digital Law and Digital Rights and Responsibilities a little bit closer.

Digital Law – Sometimes young people have a misconception about things that happen online. There is an “it’s online not in the real world” mindset that some times youth can get into. Well there is a set of Laws that are designed to govern how people use and interact online, much the same as in everyday life (that is when your not online).

Some of the things that are covered in these Laws are things like:

-       Cyber bullying

-       Stalking

-       Information theft

-       Personal Identity Theft

-       Using viruses to attack others systems or computers

-       Downloading illegal music or videos

-       Privacy

-       Free speech

Class Discussion:

Now the way these Laws work in the online world might seem a bit weird at first thought. We are going to go over an example to talk about what it might look like. The example is one of your friends sends you a picture that their girlfriend/boyfriend may have sent them. You having received this picture then forward it on to friends on your contact list and so on. Well if this person is under the age of 18 and it was an explicit picture than you can be charge with trafficking child pornography. Even though you didn’t take the picture or send it out initially, you can still be charged. This is a serious example but just the simple act of forwarding a picture that someone else sent you could put you in a real tough situation.

Rights and Responsibilities

- The definition of digital rights and responsibilities is having the right and freedom to use all types of digital technology while using the technology in an acceptable and appropriate manner. As a user of digital technology, you also have the right to privacy and the freedom of personal expression.

- We will start out this next portion of class by checking out a video on the topic of digital rights and responsibility

Video

Class Discussion:

Is there anything that you think was missing from the video?

Is there anything in the video that you would not have thought about?

How do you think the idea of digital rights and responsibility applies to you in what you do online?

You can post on comment based on any of these questions on the blog (remember to log in). If you want to post a comment about one of the topics or ideas we talked about earlier in class on Digital Law you can do that instead. You have the last 10 minutes of class to make your posts and I want you to comment on at least 1 other persons comment.

This is a great chance to think about your digital rights and responsibilities as you make your posts and comments!!

Is the Internet permanent?

Lesson 3: The concept of permanent and the Internet

Today’s class will primarily be a working class, however we will spend about the last 10 minutes checking out a website designed to help people in troubling situations: 

The concepts that we are looking at today in a bit of an indirect way are Digital Communication and Digital Etiquette

The expanding digital communication options have changed everything because people are able to keep in constant communication with anyone else. Now everyone has the opportunity to communicate and collaborate with anyone from anywhere and anytime. Unfortunately, many users have not been taught how to make appropriate decisions when faced with so many different digital communication options.

Technology users often see this area as one of the most pressing problems when dealing with Digital Citizenship. We recognize inappropriate behavior when we see it, but before people use technology they do not learn digital etiquette (i.e., appropriate conduct).   Many people feel uncomfortable talking to others about their digital etiquette.  Often rules and regulations are created or the technology is simply banned to stop inappropriate use.

Lets see how these concepts apply to the idea that things are permanent on the Internet.

Below you will see some excerpts taking from the webpage:  http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2013/12/the-terrifying-permanence-of-internet.html

Within in some of the items posted are links to other articles on the same topic, please feel free to check them out when you get a chance.

-       Whenever I talk about e-books, there are still some people who will chime in and say they can't imagine putting their library at the risk of a glitch and losing everything.

-       This is a serious misunderstanding. My e-book library is far more secure than anything on paper. My e-books live on multiple devices, they're backed up to my local backup drive and both Amazon's and Apple's clouds. If I ever lost one device I could instantaneously download the e-books onto another.

-       There's something about digital files that still feel so impermanent to people, and yet barring an unimaginable apocalypse they're more permanent than anything etched in stone.

-       People are now coming around to the unsettling reality that everything you say on social media lasts forever, but it cuts even deeper than that. This week we learned that Facebook may even be keeping track of the status updates you started to write but deleted before posting. Google knows every search you've ever made (and so, perhaps, does the NSA). There's very little you can do online that won't be stored, somewhere, forever.

-       All your digital mistakes, all your e-mails, all your photos, many of your darkest thoughts... they're preserved for eternity. You may now have the comfort of living your life mainly offline and may even be a social media recluse, but so much of your life is still out there.

-       There are now debates taking place in Europe and Australia about the "right to be forgotten" on the Internet, trying to preserve some sort of analog analogy into the digital era, but this seems to me to be a case where the genie is out of the bottle.

-       Humanity will never be permanent, at least on a cosmic timeline, but as long as our computer servers persist none of us will truly be forgotten. Long after our bodies have been turned to dust our digital footprints will live on, our searches and our e-mails and our online existence preserved as 1s and 0s in some chips in some computers in some server farms scattered around the world.

-       How many people are staying in relationships because they fear how starkly public breakups can be in the Facebook era? How many people have had their reputations destroyed online by one youthful indiscretion or even a colossal misunderstanding?

Well that was a little heavy handed wasn’t it? This lesson is not designed to scare you but some of the consequences for misusing the Internet can be a little scary. Now what I want you to do is to pick one or two of the excerpts and you are going to use them to create something about the permanent nature of the Internet. Try to pick the ones that you found the most shocking or that presented something that you didn't know about the Internet before. 

For this exercise you are going to have the choice to use one of the web based creation tools we have previously used, eg. Educreations, Powtoon, Moovly, etc. or another of your choosing.

Time to Work!!

*Class Discussion and Website review. *

NeedHelpNow.ca

In the above posts you will see the concept of permanent and how it relates to everything you do online. No this is not just to scare you, there are lots of great things about the Internet, and it allows you to do great things. But and it’s BIG but if you make a mistake or say something you shouldn’t it is out there and taking it back is not easy.

There are ways to get things removed from the Internet, for example if you send a picture to someone that you probably shouldn’t be sending., there are some avenues that you can take to get the picture removed and we will look at one of the websites that offer this service now:

NeedHelpNow- www.needhelpnow.ca

This is a Canadian site that assists people in removing pictures or videos that are of a sexual nature from the Internet among many other services as well. From dealing with peers, to legal implications of sharing these pictures, even offering emotional support. Just because you have a chance to remove things doesn’t mean you can be reckless

You can post your links to your creations here, This will allow me to keep track of whose is whose and then I can assess accordingly. Also I may be asking some of you to share your creations at the beginning of the next class.

Lesson 4: Final Project

Lesson 4: Final Project

In this unit we have learned a little bit about our digital footprint, what it means to be a digital citizen (hopefully a good one), we talked about digital law, rights and responsibilities and digital communication.

To finish off this Unit it is your task to create some sort of commercial (you can spend some time searching online for ideas)  teaching us what it means to be a good digital citizen, or telling us what you learned about leaving a digital footprint.

The commercial needs to be in the 60 – 90 second range and can be in almost any format as long as you clear it with me. I.E. It can be a video of you talking, a Moovly, GoAnimate or another web based platform of your choosing.

I am interested in seeing what you took away from the last set of classes.

Send your commercials link here.

Thanks

Mr. T