Digital safety, citizenship and learning resource for parents

Kids are growing up on a digital world, they are up to date in social networks, like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and so forth, spending many hours every day connected to theses digital spaces.

Obviously, digital world brings young people incredible resources and learning opportunities, but it also poses a challenge for the parents about how to manage all these sources of information, many of them unreliable, how to control the time the children spend on the internet, how to prevent cyberbullying, how to find the age-appropriate content, and so on.

Parents should start by checking the children's use of technology, warning them about the risks on the web, and , afterwards, they should show them about the potential of the internet as a source of information.

I am trying to give the parents strategies to keep an eye on what their children do and share on the web and to help them so they can guide the children to look for appropriate and safety content. And, finally, I would like to offer parents a list of useful educational resources online.

In my genially, you can find these tips for parents

I hope they find it useful.
Good luck!

MY SURVIVAL KIT

My survival kit consists in:

• My briefcase plenty of folders, sheets, post-it notes, ruler, calculator, stapler, glue stick, scissors, and so forth

• My pencil case with pens and pencils, sharpener, rubber, marker pens, clips, some stickers, highlighters, earphones, and so forth

• My lesson planner book and my memo pad, where it’s written my timetable, contact list of the students, exams dates, marks, and other ideas and note I consider important

• The student's book that we use in class, and other  reading books related to maths which I usually carry to my clases.

• My laptop, which allows me to connect to my virtual class in a Moodle platform, or my Symbaloo webmix where I have collected some links with resources or web pages address in order to use in class.

• Depending on the topic I can take some flashcards, posters, boardgames or other games (like bingo or dominoes) to do the practice exercises about this topic.

 I have prepared a Genially poster collecting all the information, you can find here

REFLECTION THIRD WEEK

This week we have had the opportunity of study new methods to integrate technology in our subjects.

I chose SAMR method and I designed a mindmap about the model, showing what this model propone, giving examples about how to implement this model, and finally writing an entry in this blog.

Then we have asked our pupils about their customs on the internet, using a survey about the digital footprint. I have a reflection and a summary of the results of the survey in this blog, too.

Now, it’s time to answer  these two questions:

•  How will you adapt your curriculum according to one or more of the digital learning theories?

The integration of technology should be something gradual, so that students do not feel stressed about using new methods or doing many tasks at the same time.

A very practical way is to work in groups, with a differet task and different technology tool for each group: take photos, record videos or sounds  with a mobile phone or a digital camera, gather opinions about a topic to accomplish a research work.

We can try a collaborative work among groups for a final outcome: some take the photos, others the videos, others the audio, and , finally, they use all these documents to write an entry in a blog, a web page, or an introductory video with the research findings.

•  How will teaching students about their digital footprint benefit them?

The students have adapted their lives to a digital environment, without taking into account the large amount of personal data they leave on the web when they surf on the Internet or they sign up for a social network.

As educators we must first show our students that their digital footprint could be indelible, so they should not share personal data or circumstances on the web, because they do not know who is collecting that information and what use they can make of it We should make that they realize that the real friends are next to them, not hidden behind a computer screen.

We must continue teaching them how to look for reliable sources of information and how to ensure privacy in the web.

And, finally, we should help them to take advantage of all the information they leave on the internet to their benefit, building a successful profile. In this way we can show them other uses of social networks, as spaces for debate, virtual communities with common interests,…, and, of course educate them about respect for other opinions or points of view.
We can also encourage our pupils to read articles like this in order to learn how to manage their digital footprints.