Digital Citizenship Conversations at the High School

Digital Citizenship: the ability to think critically, behave safely, and participate responsibly in the digital world.

"My students were amazed at
how easily people gave out their passwords."
Teacher Feedback

On November 15th, the high school building held our first Digital Citizenship lesson for all students in grades 9-12. Moving forward, approximately every other week advisory teachers will lead a discussion about a digital citizenship topic. These topics include: Online Safety and Privacy, Recognizing and Preventing Cyberbullying, Legal Use of Web Content, Digital Footprint and Reputation, and Evaluating Online Information.

“This was a good lesson, and I think the
majority of the students gained awareness of online safety.”
 - Teacher Feedback

We chose to spend time on digital citizenship because data collection from the past two years has shown there is a need. Annually since 2015, students, parents, and teachers representing our HS building have completed a survey, designed by Clarity BrightBytes, about technology access, use, and knowledge. Our High School Technology Team met several times at the beginning of the school year to analyze the data and discuss areas for improvement. Digital citizenship was identified as one of these areas, and the team determined to focus our attention there because research shows digital citizenship is important for our health and success and it closely aligns to our District Mission Statement. The High School Technology Team presented the data and team reflections to all high school teachers, and teacher insights have since guided the development of lesson topics and design.

After the first lesson, each student was emailed the Protect Your Identity presentation link* along with a link to complete a student survey. Both links require the student to be logged into his/her Ballard Google account in order to be viewed.

Below, you will find a family tip sheet in regards to the Protect Your Identity discussion.

Family Tip: Scams and Identity Theft

*Note: Due to the fact that these lessons were specifically designed for our Ballard students, in order for a parent/guardian to view these lessons, please have your Ballard student log into his/her Ballard account on a Chrome browsers before selecting the link or entering the URL in a Chrome browser Omnibox (address bar).

Hour of Code - Computer Science Week

One of our all-time favorite weeks of the school year is quickly approaching us, the celebration of Computer Science Week with  “Hour of Code” will be December 4th - 8th.  In the past 5 years of celebrating the "Hour of Code" the quality and quantity of activities have more than doubled.  Check out the Hour of Code Activities to locate the best one(s) for you and your class or group.

Never participated, no worries we have you covered.  Feel free to use the links listed below to help you get started.

Show one or all of these videos below to inspire students:

What Most Schools Don't Teach ( 5 min ) - http://viewpure.com/nKIu9yen5nc?ref=bkmk

2014 Message from the President (1:17) - http://safeshare.tv/w/GQJpuhlVtK or

                                                                                                              http://viewpure.com/6XvmhE1J9PY?ref=bkmk

BrainPOP Video:

BrainPop on Computer Programming - https://www.brainpop.com/technology/computerscience/computerprogramming/

Beginner Coding Games:

Star Wars - https://studio.code.org/s/starwars/stage/1/puzzle/1 

Code Breakers - http://pbskids.org/oddsquad/games/codebreaker/

Frozen Anna & Elsa -   https://learn.code.org/s/frozen/stage/1/puzzle/1

Angry Birds - http://learn.code.org/hoc/1

 Print Sticker for students  

Certificates for participating - https://code.org/certificates

Games of All Levels - https://hourofcode.com/us/learn

Also, Khan Academy celebrates Hour of Code - Computer Science Week.

Hour of Drawing with Code: Students will learn to program using JavaScript, one of the world's most popular programming languages via two great options:

• Drag-and-drop: block-based coding for younger students with less typing experience and students on tablet devices (ages 8+).
• Typing: keyboard-based coding for older students (ages 10+).

Hour of Webpages: Students will learn to make their own webpages using the basics of HTML and CSS (ages 10+).

Hour of Databases: Students will learn the fundamentals of databases using SQL to create tables, insert data into them, and do basic querying (ages 12+).

You may ask, "Why try computer programming?".  

According to Code. org:

*It is estimated that over the next 10 years there will be over 1.4 million (yes million) jobs/careers in Computer Science and only 400,000 grads that will be qualified. That is a shortage of a million people.

*Programming helps one understand computers.  A computer is only a tool.  If you (and/or your students) learn how to write simple programs, you (and/or your students) will gain more knowledge about how a computer works.

*Writing a few simple programs increases your (and/or your students’) confidence level.  Many people find great personal satisfaction in creating a set of instructions that solve a problem.

*Learning programming lets you (and/or your students) find out quickly whether if you (and/or your students) like programming and whether if you (and/or your students) have the analytical turn of mind programmers need.  Even if you (and/or your students) decide that programming is not for you (and/or your students), understanding the process certainly will increase your (and/or your students’) appreciation of what programmers and computers can do.

Please keep in mind, you can code/ computer program all year long.  It doesn't just have to take place the week of the celebration of "Hour of Code".

 Hour of Code Blog from 2015

Happy Coding!