Thursday, March 29, 2018

Digital Citizenship Resource

A few weeks ago I received an email from a gentleman asking me to review the Digital Citizenship online resource (Sammy's Guide to Online Safety) his company made for elementary aged students.  I get quite a few of these sorts of emails and they tend to get lost in the shuffle as I go about my day and my inbox gets more and more full.  They are also using bulk emails sent to hundreds of people and not really something that applies to what I do in the classroom.

This man, however, emailed a second -- and a third -- time.  I was getting the hint he really thought his resource was a valuable one and that he really DID want my opinion — so I took a few moments to look at it.  I’m glad I did.

Over the years, I have used lots of online resources and tools to help guide my students on the quest to assure lifelong digital safety and citizenship.  This is by no means a tool that can eliminate the need for all others -- but it is a nicely prepared FREE resource to add to your bag of tricks.

Topics of study include Protecting Personal Information, Password Safety, Email Safety, Social Media, Cyberbullying and App Safety!

Teachers or parents can provide the link for their students and have them open the site on their personal device (laptop, chromebook, or tablet).  Students can use the pen tool to circle answers or draw on each page to show understanding -- there is even a typing tool that will allow them to type their answers on the page.

Teachers/parents can even download all of the pages as worksheets if computers aren't available.

Check out this resource and let me know what you think!  Happy Surfing!