Digital Safety Education for the Teacher and Student

Students are especially susceptible to cyber crimes.

The topic for week twelve of the course was digital safety. In our respective groups we were tasked to research and present on a digital safety issue. There was a list of issues which included fair user practices and copyright issues, digital safety and privacy, pharming and phishing, and lastly cyber bullying. These four topics fit well together into a cohesive educational unit because they are relevant and share a common purpose. For example, digital safety and privacy related to cyber bullying because it established the dangers of the online world and cyber bullying as a specific threat to students today. Pharming and phishing also related to digital safety and privacy as it emphasized the risk of online scammers. Lastly, fair user practices and copyright issues addressed the increased use of online information and the procedures a person must take to use the information fairly. The purpose of learning about all four of these topics is to protect the digital media user. All in all, each topic is necessary to establish a complete understanding of digital safety. I would not drop any of the topics, but I would add the topic of commercialism. Almost every website that most online users visit has at least one advertisement. Sometimes advertisements may be obvious or subtle, but it intentionally influences the user without them knowing. I think it is important to inform students and all educational personnel on the prominent influence online marketing schemes has on the Internet. In identifying commercialism, they may become vigilant at seeking impartial and valid online information. They may also be kept digitally safe by knowing what information to fill out on applications, avoiding spam, and automatic in-app purchases. Digital safety is an important topic and I am glad that we were able to learn more about it during this week.  

The home page to my group's website on cyber bullying. 

Each group was assigned a different issue, mine was cyber bullying. As a group we used WhatsApp to communicate. This was the best web conferencing tool for us to use for this assignment. Our group consisted of Samsung and Apple smart phone users, so we needed a communication tool that would transfer information uniformly from one device to another. We found WhatsApp to be a great messenger since most of our members had access to it. In addition to its uniformity, we were able to use the app on our computers. However, I think a better tool we could have used was Google hangouts. If we used this tool instead, we could have used the Google calendar feature of setting up meetings. Other than using WhatsApp and Google docs, we used Weebly a website creator for presenting our issue. At first, we choose Weebly because multiple people were able to edit at the same time and it hand a variety of features such as a slide show maker. However, after using the application we had several incidences where it did not save some of our edited work. In the end, the published site looked dramatically different from our original edited site. The font size, color, and style were completely different from what we chose as well as the layout of information. I would not use this site again or recommend it others.  

Teachers are one of the only adults to give expert advice on digital safety.

After completing this assignment and listening to other group presentations, I learned that the Internet is a dangerous place for students and teachers. On the other hand, the Internet has valuable knowledge that would be difficult to access by other means. It also creates ways for different students to learn new concepts and for teachers to have a variety of tools to enable in-depth comprehension. As Weigel, James, and Gardner (2009) stated, ““The Internet’s potential for learning may be curtailed if youth lack key skills for navigating it” (p.10). Therefore, it is the educator's duty to teach students these digital safety issues, so that they may gain greatly from the digital world. Hollandsworth, Dowdy, and Donovan (2011) agree with this idea when they said, “ Like a village, the K-12 professional community must develop common ground that advocates the use of technology in the classroom while preparing the student to make sound choices both for themselves and for others in the digital world” (p.39). In order to be advocates of technology in the classroom and prepare students for the digital world, teachers must become experts themselves. This week’s assignment helped our class to start this journey of becoming safe online and technologically literate educators.  

This is Google's Interland an online game for learning Internet safety.

Once I become an expert at digital safety, I would teach my students ways of being safe online by creating a lesson plan, introducing games, giving homework worksheets, and assigning a group project. I would use this same outline for all grades, but I would change the level of difficulty corresponding to each grade level. Students would be taught one digital safety issue every two weeks to have it thoroughly ingrained. During the first week each issue would be presented through a multimedia slideshow. At the end of each presentation the students will have time to individually play an online digital safety game. Some of those games would include Google’s Be Internet Awesome, Cyber-Five Internet Safety, or another game that would correspond to the issue discussed. They will also be assigned homework which is a digital safety issue worksheet that they must turn in with their guardian’s signature. The worksheet would include situations such as cyber bullying, pharming, or copyright. The student would respond by writing down what they would do and their reasoning behind their actions. This homework would require help from their guardian since it is a critical thinking task. By doing this the student will be able to review the lesson and inform their guardian on such issues. During the second week the students would be assigned into groups where they will create a slideshow presentation on what they learned from the previous week and how they applied it to their lives with pictures as evidence. This way the teacher would be able to assess the students' digital safety knowledge and skills.  

 From this assignment I learned that digital safety is a broad, but important topic that must be learned scrupulously. The Internet has become an integral part not just in our personal lives, but in our careers and most importantly our student’s education. Technology and Internet use will progress even more quickly, therefore students will need to learn how to adapt to these changes. As a future teacher I am tasked with preparing my students for this challenge. However, I have reassurance because the topics that were discussed during this week are the foundation for equipping our students with the skills to learn and grow in this ever-progressing world.  

 References 

Hollandsworth, R., Dowdy, L., & Donovan, J. (2011). Digital Citizenship in K-12: It Takes a Village. TechTrends, 37(4), 39. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-011-0510-z 

Weigel, M., James, C., & Gardner, H. (2009) Learning: Peering backward and looking forward in the digital era. International Journal of Learning and Media.1(1), 10.