Day 136 - Be Safe on the Internet! - Mrs. Hoyt - Pine Glen Kindergarten

This post first appeared on Mrs. Hoyt's Blog

Safety is our number one priority!

Mrs. Ardizzoni visited room 103 on Thursday afternoon to present a lesson on internet safety!  We discussed some important rules about using internet devices.

1- Always ask a grown up (mom or dad) for permission before playing any games or using any devices.

2- Never communicate with strangers.  Many of us skype/facetime and communicate with friends and family but we do not connect with strangers.

3- Only visit sites and apps that our grown ups agree are appropriate for us.

We watched a short video pertaining to internet safety and then visited a couple of teacher approved sites!  Students loved seeing themselves on the class blog and really enjoyed learning about animals at the San Diego Zoo site!

Hey that is us on the projection screen!

Day 24 - Presenting at the First National Digital Citizenship Summit - Timmy Sullivan - BHS Senior

This post first appeared on Timmy's Blog
Digital Citizenship Best Practices for College and Career Ready Students:

An Inside Look at the Digital Citizenship Summit

Having just arrived home from presenting at the nation’s first Digital Citizenship Summit, I am eager to share the highlights of today’s event. Unfortunately, I arrived a few hours late to the summit, as I was taking SAT Subject tests this morning. I did, therefore, miss the opening ceremonies and keynote. No amount of standardized testing, however, could keep me from representing student voice at the conference! Though I arrived late, I was still fortunate enough to meet several ed-tech superstars, as well as watch the amazing Sarah Thomas entertain us with her drone.

Presenting at the conference alongside Jenn Scheffer was an incredible privilege. Since we received our invitation to present, we have been eagerly curating resources to demonstrate the benefits of integrating social media into the classroom in an effort to produce college and career ready students. Using my digital footprint as an example, Jenn and I explored the various digital platforms available to students, such as Gmail, WordPress,Twitter, YouTube, Google +, and LinkedIn. Together, through personal anecdotes and professional sources, we challenged the myth of students being “digital natives” while demonstrating the need for social media exposure in academic settings. Digital role modeling for students, as we ultimately demonstrated, yields greater results in preventing cyber-bullying, as well as educating students on the principles of digital citizenship (without the lecturing!).

The power of technology never fails to amaze me. As I was presenting, I reflected on all of the personal, professional, and academic opportunities that have come my way in the last year because of my digital presence alone. To think, at this time last year, I was not even a part of the Burlington High School Help Desk! Never would I have thought myself to become a recognized presenter at several leading ed-tech conferences. Nor could I have imagined landing an online, summer internship with EdTechTeacher, learning and working on SEO and digital content comfortably from my host-family’s home in Spain. I am especially “mind-blown” by all of the professional connections I have made online- some of whom I have spoken with for several months, but did not meet in person until today! (Special shout-out to Marialice Curran, Susan Beardan, Meghan Davis, Sarah Thomas, Judy Arzt). All of these amazing aspects of the digital world- presentation opportunities, online work, and a strong PLN- would still be unknown to me if Burlington restricted social media tools in schools. As demonstrated in our presentation, students will emulate professional online communities if they are being demonstrated by their teachers and administrators. Safe searching does not amount from restricting digital tools, rather, from promoting an appropriate digital culture.

The Digital Citizenship Summit was an incredible think tank filled with the best “brain trust” in digital role modeling. I could not have asked for a better honor than to be featured as a student exemplar at a summit promoting such an important topic. Both Marialice Curran and Ryan David Polgar did an extraordinary job creating the Digital Citizenship Summit. I cannot wait to see what they have in store for next year!

Click the image below to see Timmy's entire presentation

Day 179 - What Does Digital Citizenship Mean to You? (Video) - Jenn Scheffer - BPS Mobile Learning Coach

Day 77 - Digital Citizenship Lessons - Rings of Responsibility - Michelle Ardizzoni - Pine Glen IT Specialist

This post first appeared on the Pine Glen Library and Technology Blog

To begin the new year, our fourth grade students have been learning about being both responsible citizens within communities as well as responsible digital citizens using technology. During the lesson, students were called upon to examine and reflect on their responsibilities in both areas of citizenship.   The essential question guiding this lesson was"What kinds of responsibilities does a citizen and a digital citizen have for themselves, toward their family and friends, and toward their community?"  In these pictures, students were each given one statement on a post-it note, such as "I do not share my passwords.".  They needed to decide and discuss with a partner, where the level of responsibility of this action would be - self, family and friends, or a larger community. Students also considered how the outcomes of these scenarios could impact others.  The lesson was adapted from Common Sense Media's lesson, "Rings of Responsibility".

Their website can be found at:  Common Sense Media Education.