The Idea of Brain Breaks & Common Sense Media

Today's tech tip is all about a resource that most, if not all of us, already know about.  It is Common Sense Media.  The reason, however, that I am sharing it with you is because in a recent technology exploratory class, I realized that so much of what we think our students know about online safety and protecting our personal information is really something that we take for granted.  Digital Citizenship is a topic that we need to circle back to often and it isn't a topic that should be left to the guidance counselor or to the technology coach.  It is the responsibility of all of us to insert teachable moments about digital citizenship wherever and whenever possible.

I realize that this is easier said than done.  It is challenging even for me and I teach a class centered around technology usage!  Therefore, I have started framing these mini lessons as Brain Breaks (even though the students' brains are getting the opposite of a break during these thought-provoking sessions) but it does redirect their focus in a way that gets them prepped for the topic.  This brings me to my original subject: Common Sense Media.  This resource, free to all, is a great source of inspiration when I'm searching for a creative way to broach a specific topic that has to do with digital citizenship.  Today, for example, since my students have been working on building a website for a product that they invented, it was the perfect opportunity to remind students of their responsibility as they enter the dark hole of the Internet and publish their own websites.

On Common Sense Media, I found a host of hot topics in the form of different scenarios and allowed my students to role play each scene to create a digital citizenship skit that teaches all of us about the do's and don'ts when it comes to netiquette and online safety.  It was an active exercise forcing us to get moving, start planning, and be creative about the ways in which we wanted to share each of our skits.  I urge you to take advantage of this resource when you get the feeling that your students could use a friendly reminder about digital citizenship and/or could use a "brain break".