Digital Citizenship Week 2017

Today our students are using the immense power of digital media to explore, connect, create, and learn in ways never before imagined. With this power, young people have extraordinary responsibilities.

As one way to build key skills and mindsets around digital resilience, online safety, and online security, the SAS ES will observe Digital Citizenship Week from Oct 23-27. Linked below please find a youtube playlist of helpful videos and discussion points for teachers to use with their class. If able, please take approximately 5-10 minutes a day this week to show one video per day and then facilitate a brief discussion on the key points.

K-2

K-2 Video List and Discussions
Monday: What is the Internet?
-Ask your students the questions from the video
-What is the internet?
-How does it work?
-What can you do with the internet?

Reiterate that the internet is a way to connect people and their ideas no matter where they live and this week students are going to find out how to use the internet responsibly.

Tuesday: My Online Neighborhood
-Review the Going Online Safely Rules
-Ask permission to go online first
-Stick to people you know
-Stick to just right places

Wednesday: Follow the Digital Trail
-Information (words, photos, blog posts) you put online leaves a trail
-This trail is called a digital footprint, information about you on the internet
-Only share information (words, photos, and blog posts) that you are ok with everyone seeing

OK to Share (interests, hobbies, first name)
NOT OK to Share (address, full name, information that would hurt others)

Thursday: Pause and Think Online
-Only share information (words, photos, and blog posts) that you are ok with everyone seeing
-Show respect, be fair, and be nice online
-Lead a balanced online and offline life (screen time is a sometimes activity)
-Let an adult know when something online is not OK or makes you feel uncomfortable

Friday: Super Digital Citizen
-Ask students, “What does it mean to be a super citizen?”
-It is important to act safely, responsibly, and respectfully both online and offline
-Always follow the SAS core values

3-5

3-5 Video List and Discussions 
MONDAY 
- What's in Your Digital Footprint?​ (1:08)
- Follow the Digital Trail (2:29)

​Discuss with students:
-​Personal Histories: 
-What information about you recorded? (names, birth certificate, passport, medical information, school records...)
-Who keeps information about you? How do they get this information? (teachers/school; parents and those parents give permission to)
-How are histories of people recorded? How has this changed?
​-What information about yourself do you share? 

TUESDAY - Mindful Messaging (1:47)

​Discuss with students:
-What are some differences between saying something aloud to someone and writing it in an email?
-What are some ways to be respectful when sending an email, text, or IM?
-What should you do before you send an email, text, or IM?

WEDNESDAY - The Power of Words (2:55)

​Discuss with students:
-Why is it a bad idea to send mean or scary messages online?
-What can kids do when they get cyberbullying messages?

THURSDAY - Pause and Think Online (3:15)
​
Discuss with students:
-Why should you think before you go online?

FRIDAY - Super Digital Citizen (2:09)
​
Discuss with students:
-What kind of power does the Internet give us?
-How can we help others to be good digital citizens?

Suggested handout to email parents.
https://www.commonsensemedia.org/sites/default/files/uploads/classroom_curriculum/2015_digcit_week_onepager.pdf

Videos and resources from https://www.commonsensemedia.org

Another Great Collaborative Inquiry

Students in Mr. Lewis's class were inquiring into their friends' interests at school, hobbies outside of school, and places they like to visit.

A Sea Animal Inquiry

A Peaceful Protest

Mr. Lewis's KG class inquired into sea animals.  They were interested in learning:

• What does my animal need to survive?
• Where does my animal live?
• How can it live there?
• How can we help these animals survive?

To culminate their learning, the students chose to lead a peaceful protest and share with others the importance of not polluting the oceans.

 

Kindergarten Word Work

Reading Superpowers

Kindergartners reflect on the reading 'Superpower' they use the most often.

A Celebrations Inquiry

KG Reading Superpower YAKiT

Kindergartners have been learning to use superpowers in order to become stronger readers.  These students designed their very own superhero self and reflected on which reading superpower they use most often.  After that, students created a YAKiT to explain their superpower.

Exploring Ways to Make Numbers in Kindergarten with Osmo

Make a Class Book of New Learning

Kindergarten students have been busy inquiring into tree frogs in Ms. Burant's class.  They have wondered, researched, interviewed experts, observed, and reflected on their learning.  Each student has chosen a fact to share in their class book, The Green Tree Frog: Fun Facts.

Students made the posters in Pic Kids.

A High School Interim student, Matt, compiled the posters into a class book using the app, Book Creator.

Here is a video showing the almost finished book.  A few students have been absent who need to contribute to the book and a few more voices need recording.

YAKiT Kids

Kindergarten students explored Yakit Kids today to learn how to become the characters in their books. Last week, students had brainstormed one of their favorite characters with a reason why by filling out a graphic organizer.  Today, students used Yakit Kids and made a video of themselves talking as the character. Below is a sample.

Ways to Make a Number

Kindergartners explored the app Drawing Pad and how they could use it to show decomposing a number.

What do you know about peace? An Intro to an Inquiry

Kindergarten students in Ms. wan's class are going to begin an inquiry into peace.  In order to activate any prior knowledge and 'tune in' to information students already know, Ms. Wan asked that each student share what the word peace made them think.  Here is a video.    

The Red Angelfish are Making Friends in Paraguay!

Ms. Gray's kindergarten class is starting a partnership with another class at the American School of Ascunción in Paraguay.  They began by making an intro video.  Here it is!

KG Share their New Learning about the Human Body

Mr. Lewis's class finished their guided inquiry on the human body and shared their new learning with some pre-k students.  It was exciting to see how quickly the kindergartners partnered up with a younger student and dove straight into explaining their models about the human body. I overheard one student saying, "You see the lungs are here [pointing to a printed picture of internal human anatomy] and here they are in my model too."  Students also shared how the sides of the brain control the opposite side of the body.  Other students explained how veins take blood back to the heart.

Mr. Lewis's students were very proud to be able to teach the pre-k kids and demonstrate how they had become experts about what is inside their bodies.

Here is a short video of their inquiry.

     

Visual Literacy in Kindergarten

I worked with a kindergarten class to integrate visual literacy skills with letters and sounds.  Students had to make a poster of a letter and an object that started with that sound while applying good poster design principles (solid color background, images large, straight, and lined up).  Below are some finished samples.  

A Shared Inquiry

Mr. Lewis, a kindergarten teacher, began a shared inquiry with his class and then asked the librarian, Ms. Cuthbert, and me to join him on their learning journey.

It has been exciting to watch the students explore together a topic they found intriguing.  We are only in the first stages of our inquiry according to Kath Murdoch's model.  Below are some photos detailing what those stages have looked like with Mr. Lewis's class.

Learning how to Take Great Photos

In my kindergarten and first grade classes, students have been investigating what makes a good photo. Students identified 3 qualities of a very good photo:

1. Fill the screen with what is important
2. Make sure it is clear
3. Photo should be right-side up

Here a few examples of photos that some students took during this lesson.

Creation Stations - Surpassing my Expectations

I was prepping stations for my first kindergarten class at The LOFT - Creation Stations and a colleague saw me pull out the Popsicle Airplane engineering station.  He asked if I was sure I wanted to use that station with 5 year olds.  I did agree that it seemed ambitious and could end in a total flop, but decided I was more interested to see what they could build by simply looking at an image of a bi-plane.  I could only use the image as most of these students can't even read yet.  

Needless to say, I was flabbergasted at how quickly the three boys took to this station, investigating the materials and seeing how they could be attached together to design a bi-plane.  After all three students were able to use a clothespin as the body of the plane and a popsicle stick as the front wings, two of the boys felt they had accomplished their goal and engaged in dramatic play with their newly created bi-plane.  That is, until the other student continued to study the image and went on to add a paperclip for the horizontal stabilizer.  After that, he broke a popsicle stick into half and used one half of it for the vertical rudder.  Of course, his classmates who were originally content with their planes began looking at his and thinking, "I want to add that to mine too!", which meant they went back to designing as well. The other student was still so engrossed with his bi-plane, that he added broken bamboo skewers as struts and as a way to attach buttons to the plane for the wheels.  Lastly, he glued another button as the rear wheel directly to the body of the plane and finished his design off with a pipe cleaner propeller.

I was absolutely impressed at how this 5 year old student had shown character and critical thinking skills to create his very own bi-plane model with only certain materials available based on a simple diagram.  I will never underestimate our youngest learners at school again!

Rules for my School iPad

This year, for both my initial kindergarten and first grade ipad lessons I took a different approach to our digital citizenship agreement.  Instead of just sharing with students what the school rules for ipads were, I engaged the students in a discussion on what kind of rules they have with devices at home.  I was super impressed at how quickly children shared rules about time limits, only using ipads on Saturdays, not being able to download apps, not knowing their parents' passwords, having to ask permission to use the device, certain apps (YouTube and "war games") were off limits, etc...  We then agreed upon which of those rules should pertain to school.  Below is an example of the school ipad agreements for one class.