Digital Citizenship Activity

Group Planning Template

Focus: Digital Communication
Group Members

Sara Hughes

Purpose/Objective(s)
State you overall purpose as well as objective! (2 points)
Purpose: The purpose of this lesson is to build better digital citizens out of the students and teach
them how to engage in healthy digital communications/exchanges of electronic information.
Objective: By the end of the lesson, students will be able to display responsible behavior with regard to
digital communication; and will be able to understand the differences between the positive/negative
types of communication that should be exchanged electronically.
ISTE Standards:
Category: Digital citizenship
Description: Students understand human, cultural, and societal issues related to technology and
practice legal and ethical behavior:
a. Advocate and practice safe, legal, and responsible use of information and technology
b. Exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and
productivity
c. Demonstrate personal responsibility for lifelong learning
d. Exhibit leadership for digital citizenship

Activity
How will you go about addressing the 9 Themes of Digital Citizenship? (Note whether your presentation
will be geared to primary, elementary, intermediate, secondary, higher etc, parents, community, etc.)
(10 points)
Age level: Elementary (grade 5)
Activities
Introduction: I will introduce the lesson by playing a Brain Pop Jr. video on digital
communication (Video:
http://www.brainpopjr.com/artsandtechnology/technology/internetsafety/)
Sorting Activity: After watching the video, I will group the students into groups of 4-5 students
and hand out a stack of different pictures displaying digital communication examples. I will then
have the students sort them into an inappropriate digital communication pile and an
appropriate digital communication pile. Examples of the pictures would include the following:
Good pile
Nice email to a friend or pen pal
Instant message to Mom (outside of school)
Post in a class blog
Picture of project sent via text message

Bad

Mean blog post making fun of a peer

A video/picture of someone falling sent from peer to peer
An email with the subject: Youve won 1,000,000 dollars! Just open this email
to receive money.
A chat room bubble from a random stranger asking where the student goes to
school or where they live.
Discussion: After sorting, I will ask various questions to the groups including asking their
opinions of why they sorted the pictures into the different piles. I would then ask them what they
should do if they were confronted with one of the examples in the bad pile. We would then go
over reporting inappropriate behavior to either the teacher or an adult that they know well.
Quiz: The children would take this Brain Pop Jr. quiz on digital communication:
http://www.brainpopjr.com/artsandtechnology/technology/internetsafety/hardquiz/
Closing Activity: Students will fill out and sign a Digital Citizenship Pledge (attached). Pledges
will be hung on the walls of the classroom for display.

Resources to Share
What resources will you use/share with your students/audience? (2 points)
Video: http://www.brainpopjr.com/artsandtechnology/technology/internetsafety/
Poster:
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/uploads/pdfs/pauseandthinkpostersfinal.
pdf
Contract (Attached)
Image/Poster:
http://school.boiseschools.org/modules/groups/homepagefiles/cms/2386916/Image/Digital%20
Citizenship/I-am-a-digital-citizen-poster.jpg

Parent or Community Connection

What will you do to get parents or the community involved and supportive? (2 points)
I will ask parents to help monitor & remind students when they are at home of the proper digital
citizenship behaviors
I will have students make a who to go to index card for inappropriate communication found on
the internet (teacher, guardian, familiar adult)
I will invite parents in for a Digital Citizenship day. They can look at the students pledges and
watch videos with students. This can be thought of as a kick-off celebration for learning about
how to be good digital citizens.
I will also periodically email parents articles like the ones below to read up on:
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/privacy-and-internet-safety
http://www.staysafeonline.org/stay-safe-online/for-parents/raising-digital-citizens

Evaluation
How will you assess the effectiveness of your activity/presentation? (2 points)
I will assess the effectiveness of my activity & presentation by recording student responses to
initial discussion questions, looking at scores of the Digital Citizenship quiz, assessing each
students Digital Citizenship Pledge, and informally observing the students and their
conversations with one another as they sort their decks of digital citizenship cards with their
group.