Thank you for your patience as we rolled out our online learning last week! We spent the first couple of days exploring the Google Classroom space and learning how to navigate assignments and presentations. I presented brief lessons but kept the focus of the week on human connection and transitioning to our new learning platform. It was heartwarming to see the students' faces after our time apart, and they seemed to enjoy seeing each other and catching up. I have emphasized to the students the importance of keeping up with homework assignments while also maintaining a balance that reduces stress. I will continue to keep their workload reasonable to ensure that school is not another stressor in an already stressful situation. Please let me know if you are having difficulty accessing our online platform. I sent invitations to the Google Classroom to at least one email address per family. Please let me know if you didn't receive it.
I am working with the other class teachers and subject teachers to deliver our content in a way that best meets our students and their families needs. I welcome your feedback on how our process is working and will be setting up an online meeting to discuss ideas with parents over the next couple of weeks.
This week will be our introduction to Cyber Civics. As we shift into this new topic, it will become the focus of our writing content. I will continue to assign and cover math topics, and the students will have reading assignments from Journey to the Center of the Earth. We will shift our earth science study of geology to a more student-led approach where I provide reading material and students will be expected to complete assignments more independently. I will also be assigning typing lessons to supplement our online learning environment. We will be using Typing Club's Typing Jungle program to learn keyboarding skills. It is a free program that is thoughtful, reinforcing, and well-designed. I will be asking students to spend about 10-15 minutes, 4 times per week on developing their typing skills.
With the sudden shift to distance learning, the coronavirus crisis has thrust low media families into a new reality as we incorporate online learning tools into our children's daily lives. The world our students are growing up in is entirely different from the one many of us remember from our own youth. New technologies make it possible to access information, connect with new people, and express creativity in ways we could hardly have imagined! Yet with all these exciting possibilities come some challenges.
Children must be prepared to thrive in a new digital world. Cyber Civics was designed to help students meet this challenge. Through a series of developmentally appropriate lessons and activities, your children will develop the digital literacy skills needed to successfully navigate the online world. Over three years, Cyber Civics covers digital citizenship, information literacy, and media literacy.
Initially the students will focus on digital citizenship -- the safe and appropriate use of digital tools. Because experts agree that the most important media skills are social and behavioral skills, this first level of Cyber Civics is delivered through games, role-play, discussion and debate. I will assign writing projects to support the concepts we explore in each level. Following is a brief overview of the digital citizenship topics the students will explore:
CYBER CIVICS LEVEL 1: Digital Citizenship (the safe and responsible use of digital tools)
Unit 1: Becoming a De-‘Tech’-Tive
Students explore the impact that different technologies have had upon humankind throughout the ages, before taking a closer look at the digital tools of today.
Unit 2: Citizenship
We are citizens of all sorts of communities today, online and off. In this unit students discover what it means to be a good citizen in the digital age.
Unit 3: Your Digital Reputation
Students learn that everything they post online—and everything others post about them—contributes to their “digital reputations.” Through role-play and hands-on activities, they discover how to take a proactive role in managing their reputations.
Unit 4: Ethical Thinking
Nearly every online activity requires ethical thought—Should I upload an unflattering photo of a friend? Should I post information that might hurt the feelings of another? This unit helps students think through the ethical implications of their online actions.
Unit 5: Cyberbullying and Digital Drama
Students learn to identify cyberbullying and digital drama, and most importantly, become empowered with strategies to deal with and/or report online cruelty of any kind.
Unit 6: Identity & Privacy
“Who am I?” is an important question during the preteen and teenage years, and today many young people turn to the digital world to find the answer. While the Internet can be a good place to explore different ideas or personal characteristics, there can also be danger in sharing too much personal information online, which is explored in the lessons in this unit. Also includes lesson on “hate speech.”
For information on how to keep kids safe online, please visit the website for parents: www.cyberwise.org .
The Cyberwise newsletter, sent every couple of weeks, is full of info that will help you be an A+ digital parent: http://bit.ly/CyberwiseNews
“Raising Humans in a Digital World: Helping Kids Build a Healthy Relationship with Technology” (HarperCollins Leadership), by founder Diana Graber, is the new book about Cyber Civics: http://bit.ly/raisinghumansamazon. Reading it will help you understand this program.