Blog Post 7

Internet Safety and Digital Citizenship -

https://larrecegroover.weebly.com/blog/itec-7430-internet-safety-digital-
citizenship-and-global-collaboration-projects

Educating our students through technology is become part of most classrooms so

an emphasis on teaching students about digital citizenship has to be a crucial
part of a teacher’s instruction each year. First a school needs to develop a school
internet policy and let parents, staff, and students know about the policies.
Parents can be informed through the school website, classroom newsletter, and
print materials. Teachers can educate students using storytelling using
scenarios, real-life situations, and activities. One activity I have used to highlight
copyrighting involves all students creating an original artwork with no one
signing their masterpiece. We then give a small prize to one winner who is not
the original creator of the artwork showcasing how taking ownership of
someone’s work is not right. It always creates a discussion about fairness,
honesty, and copyright. We display the winning masterpiece as a reminder to
students throughout the year. I found
Commons Sense Education – Classroom Posters for teachers and students a
useful resource for print materials to use in the classroom and throughout the
school. A few of the posters are specific for teachers while several of the posters
focus on student digital citizenship. Teachers can also develop a better
understanding of digital citizenship for their students and how to use the
internet safely within their classroom as they work through the trainings at
Google for Education – Digital Citizenship and Safety Course. The courses review
concepts as simple as how to create secure passwords to managing an online
reputation. I also found Digital Citizenship lessons you can work through with
your students or assign the lessons to allow your students to move through them
at their pace on Nearpod. The lessons focus on how students can be good digital
citizen with additional lessons focusing on the use of media literacy.

Global Collaboration Projects
The two Global Collaboration Projects (GCPs) I chose to explore involved a
holiday card project and an art project. Each of the projects allows teachers and
students an opportunity to participate in activities that initially do not involve a
digital component but progress towards digital activities. In the Holiday Card
Project students create greeting cards to exchange with other classes with a
Google Presentation sharing their card and Flipgrids explaining their favorite
holiday tradition. I an extension activity allows the class an opportunity to
participate in a Mystery Skype which I think would be great for my students. My
students love solving mysteries and riddles so this activity would pull in several
activities they find exciting. It incorporates teamwork and problem solving
which helps with my standards and is something my students find fascinating. I
believe this activity would allow my students to work on collaboration skills
through each component of the card activity as well as the skype experience. As
the students participate in the activities, it would provide an opportunity to
integrate digital citizenship lessons. The students would build global and cultural
awareness as they learn about different holiday traditions and geographical
regions through the card exchange and the Flipgrid activity.

The second GCP was a project hosted by Jennifer Wagner at

http://www.projectsbyjen.com called Picture It. The class would focus on a
designated artist along with 23 other classrooms to create 1 collaborative piece
of art. Each of the schools would have an original piece of completed artwork at
the conclusion of the project created by 24 different schools. The students can
skype, email, and hangout with the other classes participating in the art project.
Each school will also participate in a Google Slideshow with information about
each classroom participating in the creation of the piece of work. I believe this
activity would also provide the teacher an opportunity to teach the students
about digital citizenship when using skype while they learn about the other
schools working on the project. The project provides the opportunity to create
global and cultural awareness while they collaborate with other schools as well as
the students in their class.



I believe teachers would participate in the Global Collaboration Projects however
time is a factor. Teachers struggle to get to all of their standards and meet all the
requirements each year so adding an additional project seems impossible. As you
look into participating in a project, it would be important to find a project you
could use to address some of your standards with as you are working to complete
the different components. I also believe it would be important to make sure you
get permission and make sure you take precautions to keep your students safe.