One of the oldest adages in marketing is “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted, but I don’t know which half.” It’s as important for advertisers to reach the right people as it is to make an appealing ad, so they have developed many different ways of targeting ads effectively. Online advertising lets marketers match different ads with individual users. This section looks at how that’s done and how it affects kids’ privacy.
Privacy
In this lesson, students will learn about algorithms and how they function, particularly recommendation algorithms utilized by popular apps like YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Netflix. Students explore the role of optimization goals such as watch time, engagement, and daily active use in shaping the content algorithms prioritize. Through activities like “red teaming,” students will critically analyze the potential downsides and biases of these optimization goals. Students will also discover how to train algorithms by providing both explicit inputs through actions like liking and sharing, and understand the implications of implicit inputs gathered from their online activity. Finally, students design their own algorithm for an app of their choice, identifying which goals it should be optimized for and how they should be weighted as well as what inputs it should use.
Helping Kids Build Safe and Smart Digital Habits
There are four main strategies to help kids become resilient to online risks. We can:
Curate our kids’ media experiences;
Control who can access our kids and their data;
Co-view media with our kids;
and be our kids’ media Coaches.
Helping Kids Build Safe and Smart Digital Habits
Parents can focus on helping kids this age explore safely by choosing high-quality experiences, setting clear boundaries, and teaching them how to recognize when something feels off.
There are four main strategies to help kids become resilient to online risks. We can:
Curate our kids’ media experiences;
Control who can access our kids and their data;
Co-view media with our kids;
and be our kids’ media Coaches.
While they’re not going through as much development as tweens, moving to high school at the beginning of this stage – and moving out of it at the end – can be stressful.
It’s easier than ever to know the whereabouts of your family and friends. There are devices you can buy with wearable GPS systems. Effectively, you can be traced and tracked by loved ones.
This guide provides an overview of what AI is – and in particular Generative AI – and gives two examples of main AI tools you are likely to encounter. Then it explains some key ethical and social issues related to Generative AI.
Teachers can play a critical role in educating their students about AI, even if they aren’t experts on it. By addressing AI in ways that are designed to build students’ skills and teach them about the pitfalls of relying too much on it, teachers can help build the next generation of citizens who are empowered with the skills necessary to succeed in a world infused with AI technology.
In this lesson, students learn about algorithms and AI, how they work, how they impact our lives on the internet, and ethical considerations. The lesson begins with a class discussion on algorithms. Students will discuss how AIs reinforce real-world biases, the difficulties in identifying how AIs make decisions, what information algorithms use to make choices, and how that information impacts the types of decisions AIs make. Finally, students will demonstrate their knowledge by researching and designing an infographic on a field that uses algorithms to make decisions. This lesson aims to build critical thinking skills by examining how AI algorithms work, investigating the biases and impacts of AI decision-making, and reflecting on how the implications to their own lives.
Cyber Choices is an interactive game designed to help students in grades 3 to 5 develop the skills and habits they need to make safe and responsible choices online. Cyber Choices lets students explore four different stories that cover key issues such as making good choices about their own and others’ personal information, dealing with cyberbullying (as both a target and a witness) and managing online conflict.