MediaSmarts Tags - Digital Citizenship

In this sequel to Privacy Playground, for ages 8-10, the three CyberPigs learn some important lessons about authenticating online information and observing rules of netiquette. They also learn how to distinguish between fact and opinion and how to recognize bias and harmful stereotyping in online content. As Les, Mo and Lil discover, "just because it's on the Internet, doesn't mean it's true."

Level: Grades 7 to 10

Author: MediaSmarts

Overview

In this lesson students apply the "5W's of Cyberspace" to sources of information they find online. Assuming the role of a student researching a science project, students must authenticate the information in an online article about the artificial sweetener, Aspartame.

Learning Outcomes

Students will:

Parents know that children and young people can easily become 'hooked' on online activities such as gaming and using Facebook, but is this really an addiction?

Here are some ideas to help you get started.

How does it work?

With file sharing systems, several computers can communicate directly through a network to trade files: most often music in MP3 format, but movie files are gaining in popularity (in the first week after its release in 2009, the blockbuster film Avatar was illegally downloaded one million times).

Someone encountering the Internet for the first time might be forgiven for assuming it was created specifically for teenagers. Indeed, the Internet could reasonably be said to have been aging backwards since its birth – the domain first of scientists and the military, then of university students in the 1990s and now children and teenagers.

Approximately four to six per cent of Canadian high school students are addicted to gambling and another 10 to 14 per cent is at risk of developing an addiction -- which means that they already show signs of losing control over their gambling behaviour. [1]

Young people are increasingly turning to Internet gambling, which is anonymous and convenient. A study of Montreal, Quebec high school students showed that nine per cent have gambled for money on the Internet. [2]

Level: Grades 8-10

Author: Matthew Johnson, Director of Education, MediaSmarts

Duration: 3-4 hours

Overview

Level: Grades 8-10

Duration: 2-3 hours

Author: Matthew Johnson, Director of Education, MediaSmarts

Overview